So-called Elections No Alternative To Kashmiris’ Right To Self-determination: Shabbir Shah

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 17th Apr, 2024) Incarcerated senior leader of All Parties Hurriyat Conference, Shabbir Ahmed Shah has urged India to create a favorable environment for a durable and permanent settlement of the lingering Kashmir dispute instead of staging so-called election dramas in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

According to Kashmir Media Service, Shabbir Ahmad Shah, who is also the chairman of Jammu Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party, in a message from the notorious Tihar Jail in New Delhi, while reacting to the upcoming Indian parliamentary elections in IIOJK, said that such an exercise can never be a substitute for the right to self-determination of the Kashmiri people.

He said, “Kashmir is an unresolved political issue that cannot be resolved by force means but only through meaningful and result-oriented talks between the three principal parties, the Kashmiris, India and Pakistan”.

Shabbir Shah said the Kashmiri people have nothing to do with the Indian parliamentary elections and they only want that they be given their inalienable right to self-determination.

Expressing serious concern over unrealistic and rigid attitude of the Indian rulers regarding the Kashmir dispute, he said that they (the Indian rulers) must know that they could not change the ground realities by adopting aggressive policies.

He said that it was due to the sacrifices of the martyrs that the dispute over Kashmir had become the center of attention at the international level, adding that the Kashmiri people would never let these sacrifices go in vain.

Senior APHC leader maintained the people of occupied Jammu and Kashmir have rejected the hollow slogans of the Indian rulers and their stooges in the occupied territory and they are determined to continue their struggle till achieving freedom from Indian illegal rule.

He pointed out that thousands of Kashmiris, including Hurriyat leaders and activists were currently languishing in jails for demanding the right to self-determination.

Shabbir Shah said that the Modi government had turned the occupied territory into a military garrison and snatched away all the rights of the Kashmiris.

He made it clear that Jammu and Kashmir is an internationally recognized disputed territory and that lasting peace, stability and prosperity in the region hinged on giving the Kashmiris their birthright, the right to self-determination, in line with the United Nations resolutions.