Qureshi describes Modi's August 5 actions as attack on identity of Kashmiris people

Minister for Foreign Affairs Shah Mahmood Qureshi Wednesday said that every passing second on the curfew clock depicting the lock down in the Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir since August 5 last was a burden on the world's collective conscience.

In his message to the nation on the Kashmir Solidarity Day observed annually on February 5, the foreign minister urged the international community to do more to support the people of Occupied Jammu and Kashmir in this time of trial and tribulation.

He viewed that the illegal and unilateral actions of 5 August 2019 by India had not only violated the United Nations Security Council Resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir, international law as well as its own constitution rater it also tried to extinguish the very identity of the Kashmiri people and the concept of 'Kashmiriyat'.

"India hoped that by arbitrarily tampering with the demographic integrity of Indian occupied Jammu & Kashmir, it could dampen the spirit of the Kashmiri people or at the very least, make them compromise on their legitimate right to self-determination.

On both counts, India has abjectly failed," the foreign minister remarked. He said the international community, the human rights organizations, international media and the civil society had all called India out on its tyranny. Protests have been held in nearly all major cities in support of the Kashmiri people.

He said the United Nations and major world leaders had stood by the Kashmiris in condemning Indian actions and the United Nations Security Council has discussed the issue of Jammu and Kashmir three times during the past 6 months.

The foreign minister also reaffirmed Pakistan's unstinted political, diplomatic and moral support for the valiant Kashmiri people in their just struggle for human dignity and their inalienable right to self-determination in accordance with United Nations Security Council resolutions.