For the people of Kashmir, October 27 is “Black Day.” It was on this date 70 years ago, that the tyrannical ruler of Kashmir, who had already fled the state capital Srinagar after a mass uprising, supposedly signed the conditional “Instrument of Accession to India.”
Based on this spurious document that has never been produced in public, the Indian army invaded and occupied the State of Jammu and Kashmir. At the time it was called a temporary arrangement and as soon as “law and order” were restored, a referendum would be held to determine the wishes of the people.
It has been 70 years, but far from holding the promised referendum, India has sunk its military claws deeper. Nearly one million heavily armed Indian troops in Kashmir have killed an estimated 100,000 people whose only crime is to demand the right to self-determination. Tens of thousands of Kashmiris have simply disappeared and are presumed dead. Some 11,000 Kashmiri women have been raped.
In recent years, India’s colonial forces have been using pellet guns that have blinded thousands of young Kashmiris, mostly students. If in the 14 years since the 1989 massacre, an entire generation of Kashmiris has been wiped out, in the last two years, a new generation of Kashmiris has been blinded.
Unfortunately, the rest of the world has turned a blind eye to such egregious Indian crimes that are well documented. Why such callousness?