After the Lower House, the Senate on Tuesday also unanimously passed a resolution strongly condemning the recent barbarism and atrocities by the Indian security forces in Indian-held Kashmir (IHK) that claimed lives of a number of innocent Kashmiris in Pulwama district.
The resolution moved by Pakistan People’s Party’s Sherry Rehman stated that no journalists, foreign tourists and humanitarian organizations were allowed to enter the occupied valley. The resolution stated that the continued atrocities by Indian occupation forces can never suppress the just political struggle of the Kashmiri for the legitimate right of self-determination.
The resolution took note of OIC secretary general’s statement expressing strong condemnation of the killing of innocent Kashmiris by Indian forces in the occupied valley. It urged the OIC to call an emergency meeting on the said violations.
The resolution called upon the international community to end its indifference and deliberate negligence of systematic repression of Kashmiris by the Indian security forces through disappearances, human shields, state encounters, rapes, the use of live ammunition, illegal searches, seizures and use of pallet guns.
It urged the government to implement earlier resolutions passed by the Senate requiring appointment of special envoys to raise the Kashmir issue at all international forums and get appointed a special envoy of the United Nations for the Kashmir dispute. The resolution reiterated Pakistan’s commitment to continue its moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiris towards the day when they would exercise their recognized right to self-determination under UN Security Council resolutions.
Expressing her views in Senate, Minister for Human Rights Dr Shireen Mazari said the government was working on a concrete blueprint for the resolution of Kashmir issue. She said the UN General Assembly had unanimously adopted a resolution moved by Pakistan reaffirming the inviolability of right to self-determination for all people without exception including the people of Jammu and Kashmir and Palestine. She said it is an important resolution as it had been considered that the struggle for right to self-determination has become illegitimate after 9/11 which was incorrect.
“The governments in past showed negligence over the matter of Kashmir resolution,” the minister maintained. She said it was encouraging that the European parliament for the first time was going to make public the human right violations in Indian-held Kashmir. She said the government would also invite UN human rights commissioner to visit the occupied valley to take notice of the rights violations by the Indian security forces there.
Speaking on the issue, other senators strongly condemned the grave human rights violations and state terrorism continuing against the innocent Kashmiris by the Indian forces. They said that Kashmiris struggle for right to self-determination was an indigenous movement and Indian troops could never suppress people’s voice through violence.
The Senate also unanimously passed three other resolutions calling upon the government to take immediate steps to address matters of public interest.
The first resolution called upon the government to implement the system of Zakat and Usher and Islamic economic system in its true spirit. The second resolution urged the government to take immediate steps to ensure that complete name of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would be used in official correspondence instead of its acronym ‘KPK’ or ‘KP’.
The third resolution called upon the government to take immediate steps for the implementation of the commitments made at the time of merger of FATA into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa regarding the release of three percent of funds from the NFC award and creation of 20,000 jobs for the youth of those areas.
Three bills were also introduced in the House. They are: ‘The Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2018 (Amendment of Fourth Schedule)’, The Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2018 (Amendment of Article 27)’, and ‘The Child Marriage Restraint (Amendment) Bill, 2018’.
The chair referred the bills to the standing committees concerned for further deliberations. The House will now meet again on Wednesday (today) at 2:00 pm.
Published in Daily Times, December 19th2018.
