India’s genocide strategy in IOJK

'In the absence of any international accountability or even condemnation of its brutal acts against Kashmiris, India gets encouragement to intensify the process of genocide'

What India wants in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJK) should be the basic question to understand the systematic process of Kashmiri genocide since 1990.

Indeed, India wants to continue its illegal possession of the occupied parts of Jammu and Kashmir (the land of the state) at any cost, but not the Kashmiris. India is no longer interested to tolerate the Kashmiri masses, who refused to become Indian subjects despite a passage of seven decades. The ground realities are that the people of Jammu and Kashmir never accepted the Indian constitution nor ever liked to be called as Indians in their past 74 years of postcolonial history.

Through article 370 and 35A, India lured Kashmiris to become its subjects, but could not eliminate the element of Kashmiriyat from the  people of the occupied territories. The Kashmiris all over the globe have maintained their identity, the Kashmiriyat, which really bothers India.

India’s illegal act of annexation of IOJK on August 5, 2019 was ultimate, well-planned and futuristic. The process of genocide of Kashmiris is continuing ever since the restart of uprising of the local Kashmiris in 1990. Nevertheless, through its post 2019 genocide strategy, India is systematically killing Kashmiris as a campaign. Through deployment of its 900,000 armed forces, India has completely besieged the IOJK since August 5, 2019.

The houses of besieged Kashmiris are liable to be searched by the Indian Army and paramilitary forces along with spies. During the search process, these agencies use five strategies. One, killing Kashmiris on the spot in the presence of the entire family and children, since these agencies have complete impunity under Indian special power acts; the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) and the Public Safety Act (PSA).

Two, they arrest the people and take them to detention centres, where they are put through a heartless process of tease torture until death or paralysis. Three is arrest and execution through stage managed fake encounters. Four, Indian forces detonate the houses after alleging that Kashmiri activists are inside these houses. Five is persecution and raping of Kashmiri women while blaming them for the protection of those demanding their right to self-determination.

All these acts of Indian military, its paramilitary forces and agencies are part of larger Indian strategy of genocide of the Kashmiri people especially the youth. The worst part of this strategy is that it is not challenged by any one and any state, any international forum, any human rights organization, any major power, any Muslim state, OIC and above all the United Nations (UN), which has passed over two dozen resolutions about the disputed nature of Jammu Kashmir and right to self-determination of Kashmiris.

In the absence of any international accountability or even condemnation of its brutal acts against Kashmiris, India gets encouragement to intensify the process of genocide. It is worth mentioning that there have been killings of over 20 Kashmiri youths in first three weeks of November 2021. In October 2021, the number of killings in IOJK was 34, including 12 in custodial killings. The same month, 1540 Kashmiris were arrested and six houses were destroyed. Among those killed in November 2021, a video of a young Kashmiri girl has been circulating over social media, who agonizingly narrated the incident of her father’s killing by the Indian Army in front of her entire family. No human rights organization in Pakistan and anywhere in the world took note of it, nor did the mainstream media have time to debate such Indian brutalities in IOJK.

The question arises then of who will project these Indian brutalities at global level, since there is a total blackout in IOJK. The few incidents reported on social media, despite the ban, speak a lot about the Indian atrocities in IOJK.

On November 18, the Indian Army killed five Kashmiri youths, while being in the custody of the Indian Army, which were acts of extra judicial killings. This is in addition to the earlier deaths of four Kashmiri youths in extra-judicial killing.

In Islamabad, the Foreign Office strongly condemned the extra-judicial killings of five more Kashmiris by Indian occupation forces a day earlier in the occupied territories, and called on the international community to take notice of New Delhi’s state terrorism in the valley. The five Kashmiris were killed in Kulgam district in two separate military operations, which is the part of the Indian genocide campaign of Kashmiris. Indian Army has not returned the dead bodies of two, despite requests by families and protests in the area. These two innocent civilians were not militants but, Mohammad Altaf Bhat, a dental surgeon and Mr Mudassir Ahmed, a real estate dealer.

These type of Indian brutalities are a routine process in IOJK and primarily aim to make them examples for other Kashmiri youth, who dare to stand against the Indian military’s might.

India is using the systematic process of genocide as a last resort for controlling and illegally consolidating its occupation of IOJK. Indian strategic partnership with major powers, its superior diplomacy, its media overtures and political engagements all over the globe are providing a solid coverage to its acts of genocide. But the more serious question is; do we have a clear Kashmir Policy to safeguard and protect the Kashmiris of IOJK from the on-going systematic genocide by India?