UNITED NATIONS   -  Describing India’s occupation of Jammu and Kashmir as the “worst manifestation of modern-day colo­nialism,” Pakistan has called on the UN to push for a peaceful settlement of the lingering Kashmir dispute in accor­dance with the Security Council resolutions and Kashmiri people’s wishes.

Noting that since 1946, 80 former col­onies have gained independence, Am­bassador Munir Akram told the General Assembly’s Special Political and Decolo­nization (Fourth) Committee that there are still peoples who are denied the right to self-determination, “most prominent­ly the people of occupied Jammu & Kash­mir and Palestine.” The right of self-de­termination of the Kashmiri people, the Pakistani envoy said, was explicitly rec­ognized in UNSC resolution 47 and sev­eral subsequent resolutions, which pre­scribed that the final disposition of the State of Jammu & Kashmir should be de­cided by its people through a free and fair plebiscite held under UN auspices.

These resolutions were accepted by both India and Pakistan, he said, adding that under Article 25 of the UN Charter, both parties are obliged to implement these resolutions.

In his remarks, Ambassador Akram also said that durable peace in the Mid­dle East can only be achieved through the two-state solution and the establish­ment of a viable, independent and con­tiguous State of Palestine, with the pre-1967 borders and Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital. On Kashmir, the Pakistani en­voy said that for 75 years, through force and fraud, India has avoided the imple­mentation of UN resolutions, and since 1989, it’s “brutal” campaign of repres­sion killed 100,000 Kashmiris.

Since 5 August 2019, he said, India has taken “unilateral and illegal steps” to an­nex occupied Kashmir in what its leaders have termed as a “Final Solution”.

“Resolution 122 (1957) of the Securi­ty Council provides that unilateral mea­sures ‘to determine the future shape and affiliation of the entire state or any part thereof, would not constitute a disposi­tion of the state’”, Ambassador Akram said, adding that consequently all unilat­eral actions taken by India on and after 5 August 2019 are not only illegal, but, ipso facto, null and void.”

“Kashmir today is the most densely occupied place in the world, with more than 900,000 Indian occupation troops deployed there who have perpetrated a vicious campaign of extrajudicial kill­ings in fake encounters and so-called ‘cordon and search’ operations; abduc­tion and enforced disappearances of 13,000 young Kashmiri boys; collective punishments, destroying and burning entire villages and urban neighbour­hoods,” he said.

“In a classic settler-colonial project, In­dia is seeking to convert occupied Kash­mir from a Muslim-majority state to a Hindu-majority territory,” the Pakistani envoy said, pointing out that over 3.4 million fake domicile certificates have been issued to Hindus from across India.

“The land and properties of Kashmiris are also being confiscated for military and official use,” he told the committee.

India’s brutal campaign, he said, is tur­bo-charged by the ideology of ‘Hindutva’, which asserts the religious and ethnic supremacy of Hindus and hate against Muslims. “This has led the organization – Genocide Watch – to warn of the pos­sibility of genocide in occupied Jammu and Kashmir and, indeed, against Mus­lims within India itself.