news details |
|
|
| Pak using OIC to rake up Kashmir | | |
ABID SHAH
New Delhi, Sept 30: Pakistan is, indeed, trying to play the Islamic countries card vis-à-vis Kashmir through their broad outfit called Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) with utmost astuteness this time on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting held at New York.
According to reports reaching here, Pakistan Foreign Minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, has addressed the OIC’s contact group on Kashmir, calling for an international probe into alleged killings by security forces in Jammu and Kashmir. Among other things he is reported to have also mentioned the double murder case of Shopian which is now being probed by CBI.
Obviously, the idea behind this is to deflect attention from India’s insistence on substantial action by Pakistan against the perpetrators of last November’s attack on Mumbai or at least to take away, or blur the world community’s attention from Islamabad’s assiduous nursing of extremism which besides threatening others grew up so much as to threaten a kind of civil war within the confines of Pakistan.
As for India the last OIC was heard here was when it complained about human rights situation in Kashmir in 2008 during the land row over Amarnath shrine. New Delhi had rejected these protests by the OIC for they were backed by Pakistan. Yet through the UN General Assembly, Islamabad has been able to hoist the OIC banner vis-à-vis Kashmir once again. This also found a mention in the General Assembly before India’s or Pakistan’s Foreign Ministers could speak, courtesy the Libyan leader, Moammar Gaddafi.
Not just this, the OIC contact group appointed an envoy for Kashmir. A prominent OIC functionary from Saudi Arabia, Mr Abdullah Bin Abdul Rahman Al Bakr, has been nominated as an envoy for Kashmir with the mandate to visit the two sides of Kashmir besides Islamabad and New Delhi. The chairman of All Party Hurriyyat Conference, Mirwaiz Maulvi Umar Farooq, who addressed the OIC group in one of the conference rooms of the UN demanded that both India and Pakistan should facilitate the visit of the OIC delegation to their respective sides of the border.
Mirwaiz cited the UN Security Council resolution passed on Kashmir in 1949 in his speech and quoted from the speech of Indian representative of those times, Mr Gopalaswami Ayangar, at the UNSC. The Hurriyyat chairman made six demands before the OIC where among other things he mentioned the confinement that his colleagues like Shabir Ahmad Shah besides others have been undergoing in Indian jails. He demanded “demilitarisation” of Kashmir and repeal of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and Disturbed Areas Act.
The Hurriyyat leader talked of great sufferings faced by the people of Kashmir and lack of freedom to the people to express their political views. The track record of Pakistan vis-à-vis the last was, however, completely forgotten, or conveniently ignored, by Mirwaiz while making these assertions.
Moreover, one of the points made by him sought gradual withdrawal of troops from Kashmir, making it amply clear that the demiltarisation asked by him as his first and foremost demand was not as feasible as this may sound in safe and cool environs of a conference room. And as for Shabir Ahmad Shah who was mentioned by him, there have been reports just a couple of days ago that he was admitted to a Jammu hospital after complaints of being indisposed where he met a member of Indian intelligence as New Delhi too has been testing waters before talking to separatists like him about the possibility of peace and tranquility in the troubled State.
Talking about Kashmir in far off lands and climes may, indeed, make the vexed issue of Kashmir more jumbled, besides amounting to internationalise it and thereby violate the solemn promise made by both India and Pakistan at Shimla in 1972 to sort this out among themselves alone. Thus, the OIC, some of whose members have quite good relations with India as also acknowledged by Mirwaiz in his New York speech, should stay away from Kashmir for multilateral approach to sort this out may just complicate it more. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
