London, Nov.9 (ANI): People of Gilgit Baltistan highlight state sponsored atrocities and demand intervention by the United Nations.
President of the Institute for Gilgit Baltistan Studies, Senge Hasnan Sering, said on Thursday (November 08) said that Pakistan is heavily dependent on China as they are losing its friends around the world, including the United States, which have been the biggest patron of Pakistan for such a long time.
So, now they are heavily dependent on China and need Gilgit-Baltistan to have a border link with China, so Pakistan is desperate to continue the illegal presence in Gilgit-Baltistan.
"Pakistan forces, whether it is the Pakistani paramilitary or the secret services, they have been very supportive of those militants who have played a big role in creating mayhem in Gilgit-Baltistan and a lot of slaughter has taken place in the last 60 years and Pakistani security forces have played no role in protecting the local people. The Pakistani courts, the justice system has completely failed the local people, if you see there is not a single person, who is prosecuted so far and many of these people have been granted bail on lack of credible evidence," said Sering in London.
Sering urged the international community to take note, that there is gross violation of rights in Gilgit Baltistan and sought the intervention of the international community to stop Pakistan from absorbing Gilgit Baltistan and also called for the withdrawal of the security forces.
"Pakistan has failed to take case of the region and its people and to provide for them and we believe that the promises Pakistan made with the United Nations to respect the honour and to protect the life and assets of the local people, they have completely failed. So, we believe that United Nations has full right to play more role in Gilgit-Baltistan because Pakistan has failed the local people and failed the region and the only thing the Pakistan is interested in is exploiting its resources at the cost of deprivation for the local people. United Nations should play a bigger role and give a clear signal and message to Pakistan that if it's not upto its promises then it does not have any role to play in Gilgit-Baltistan anymore," said Sering.
The Executive Director of the International Center for Peace and Democracy, Mumtaz Khan, said Pakistan always needs kind of an enemy image to show its separate identity and instead of using Gilgit-Baltistan for progress and enrichment, Pakistan has used the region for the purposes of fashioning an environment of intolerance and violence that has impacted the lives of people in the region.
"The anti-India nationalism they (Pakistan) have been trying over decades, since they have failed doing that, now they are trying to target the Shia population, so they should come to their terms, they should change their views or perception and start subscribing pro-Wahabi ideology or two-nation theory or anti-India nationalism. Since, Pakistan has failed to build its own separate identities or create its own nationhood, since it has been created. So, it's been using anti-India sentiments and nationalism as a reference to its nationalism," said Khan.
The Northern Areas of Gilgit and Baltistan were bundled in with Kashmir and demarcated as disputed territory under U.N. resolutions passed after Pakistan and India fought the first of their three wars in 1948.
Bordering China on one side and the mainly Buddhist Indian region of Ladakh on the other, Pakistan's sparsely populated Northern Areas are known to mountaineers as the home of many of the world's highest peaks.
The roughly 1.5 million people of Gilgit and Baltistan largely oppose integration into Kashmir and demand the territory be merged into Pakistan and declared a separate province.
Officials in the past had stonewalled on this demand because it would have diluted Pakistan's demand for implementation of a U.N.-mandated plebiscite to allow the people of Kashmir to determine their own future.
Pakistani Kashmir, known as Azad Kashmir, enjoys some sort of self-rule with its own government, parliament and flag, but the Northern Areas are directly ruled by Islamabad.
Analysts say the reform package appears to be aimed at striking a balance between giving some sort of internal autonomy to the Northern Areas without undermining Pakistan's position on the Kashmir dispute. (ANI)
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