Early Times Report
JAMMU, Dec 29: Pakistan invaded J&K in October 1947 and invasion continued till December 31, 1948, when the then Indian PM JL Nehru dumbfounded the nation by unilaterally enforcing ceasefire to please his separatist and communalist friend Sheikh Abdullah of Kashmir so that he could rule the state with utmost ease. The Sheikh was afraid of all non-Kashmiris, including non-Kashmiri Muslims living in Jammu province and Gilgit-Baltistan, part of Ladakh.
JL Nehru enforced ceasefire at a time when the chivalrous Indian Army had the Pakistani invaders, regular and irregular, on the run and it was about to get the aggression vacated. The ceasefire helped Pakistan to establish its control over the whole of Shia-majority Gilgit-Baltistan region, Jammu's Mirpur, Bhimber, Kotli, Parts of Poonch, including Bagh, and Muzaffrabad. The total J&K area that Pakistan occupied through rape, murder, loot and plunder with the help of JL Nehru was 78,114 sq Km.
It may appear unbelievable or ridiculous, but it is a fact that the whole of this area was non-Kashmiri-speaking. Gilgit-Baltistan was not a home of even one ethnic Kashmiri. Similarly, Mirpur, Bhimber, Kotli, Parts of Poonch, including Bagh, and Muzaffrabad were all non-Kashmiri-speaking areas. These were Sunni-dominated and they all were Panjabi and Pathowari-speaking people.
This is the factual position. These occupied areas should have been named by the Government of India as "Pakistan-occupied-Jammu and Ladakh" (PoJL), but it committed a blunder by terming these areas as "Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir" (PoK).
It's time for the Government of India to rectify the mistake and tell the international community that Pakistan didn't occupy even an inch of non-Kashmiri speaking area of the state and that the Nehru government allowed Pakistan to occupy the non-Kashmiri-speaking areas so that Sheikh Abdullah could establish his and Kashmir's hegemony over Jammu and Ladakh.
It needs to be underlined that as per the Government of India, the total area of the State of Jammu and Kashmir is about 2,22,236 Sq Km. 78,114 Sq Km. is under the illegal occupation of Pakistan and 37,555 Sq km. under China. Not just this, 5,180 Sq. Km. of J&K was also illegally ceded to China by Pakistan under the March 1963 Sino-Pak Boundary agreement. |
