Pakistan illegally occupies part of the original State of Jammu and Kashmir. Its illegal occupation happened as a result of Pakistan sponsored tribal attack on the State in October 1947. Pakistan’s occupation of a part of the State is illegal on various counts. It launched an attack on J&K when the latter had signed a standstill agreement. Pakistan broke international law by abetting the attack. It violated the Security Council Resolutions of 1948 and 1949 asking Islamabad to vacate the occupied part of J&K before a final settlement of the State was arrived at. Pakistan ceded more than 5000 sq kms of the illegally occupied part of the State in Aksaichin area to China. What right she had to do so?
The most glaring illegal act of Pakistan is that of dividing the occupied area into two parts, PoK and Gilgit-Baltistan, allowing the former to form its Government while controlling and administering in the latter part directly from Islamabad. The PoK part is allowed to hold election to the Legislative Assembly. But this again is illegal. The ruler of the State had signed accession of entire State of Jammu and Kashmir to the Indian Union on October 26, 1947. How come PoK has formed a duplicate assembly for which it is holding periodic elections? The seat of the original State is Srinagar/Jammu and not Muzaffarabad which is a district headquarter. Thus the entire so-called Legislative Assembly of PoK is illegal and unacceptable. In a Parliamentary resolution of 1994, India has said that entire PoK and Gilgit and Baltistan are integral part of the State of Jammu and Kashmir illegally occupied by Pakistan. India has the will and the strength to take it back.
This is the brief story of how PoK and Gilgit and Baltistan areas came into illegal existence and occupation of Pakistan. Recently elections have been held in this area and the bizarre story of rigging of elections on massive scale has happened which have led to widespread violent demonstrations in all cities and towns of PoK. 32 out of total of 41 seats of the so-called assembly have been grabbed by one political party, namely ruling Nawaz Sharif’s party, Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N). It is 75 per cent of total seats for which polling was done. Two more parties viz. PPP and Muslim Conference could muster only three seats each. Three other seats were won by the Independent candidates. With the landslide victory won by the ruling PML-N, PPP which was in power has been ousted.
The outcome of the elections is not palatable to these two parties. They have started a massive public demonstration alleging that election was rigged. Demonstrators in major towns like Muzaffarabad, Kotli, Chinari and Mirpur have demanded fresh elections under international supervision because they do not trust the Government in Islamabad is fair and impartial. A PPP activist said that Nawaz Sharif’s party had paid Rs 5 crore to each of its candidate to rig and win the election. Alleging that money power has played a major role in these elections, Barrister Sultan Mahmud Chowdhury, the former Prime Minister of PoK said that massive rigging has taken place as each candidate of PML-N was paid 5 crore rupees to win majority vote at any cost. Obviously, this money has been distributed among the voters meaning that votes have been purchased. Therefore in the eyes of these contesting parties, this is an illegal election and that it has to be declared null and void and arrangements have to be made for the fresh elections which they demand should be held under the supervision of international body.
Past practice shows that in PoK generally the ruling political party in Islamabad has also won majority vote in PoK and formed Government. The previous PPP Government was no exception to this rule. The question is why have there been widespread demonstrations against the ruling party’s success this time. Actually, the ongoing violent demonstrations, in which at least four persons are reported to have been killed besides damage done to public property, reflect the anger and resentment of the people of PoK against the regime in Islamabad. If we trace the history of pre-election campaigns in PoK, we will find that much anger and disaffection have been expressed by the people against the domination of Islamabad over the affairs of PoK. It is reported that from Muzaffarabad to Neelum Valley, voters complained that they were not allowed to exercise their franchise. This is the area that has more than once staged demonstrations protesting against the movement of armed terrorists across the Neelam valley for clandestinely sneaking into Indian part of Kashmir and thus provoking the Indians to rain bullets and shells on their habitants and make life miserable for them. For quite some time there have been massive demonstrations of the people demanding that terrorist camps should be wound up from PoK territory because these training camps are a source of great threat of sudden and unexpected retaliation by the Indian army. It has to be remembered that massive protests against Gilgit and Baltistan have been taking place since long. In a court decision, Gilgit and Baltistan were pronounced as part of the original State of Jammu and Kashmir which is a factual story.
The protest rallies have not only the rigged elections as their grievance. There has not been any development worth the name in this region ever since it passed into illegal occupation of Islamabad. Nearly 8 lakh people of PoK have emigrated to UK and other western countries because there is no political stability and human rights conditionality in this area. Justice can be done to the people of PoK only if fresh elections are held under the aegis of international body like the UN or International Court of Justice or some other international organization. People deserve to be given a fairly and impartially elected Government and not a stooge of Islamabad.
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