Who Enjoys Greater Autonomy?, Pakistani Or Indian Kashmiris?

Azad Kashmir is a Pakistani-controlled area that is officially self-governing. 

It shares borders with the Pakistani provinces of Punjab, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. 

Since its independence from India, it has had full access to all basic rights under Pakistan’s administration.

It is illegal for anybody from Pakistan to purchase land or other real estate in Azad Kashmir without having a state subject certificate or other official documents proving that they have lived there permanently. 

Pakistan preserves the special status of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.

Pakistan never permits other Pakistanis from any province to purchase even one acre of land in Azad Kasmir. 

We are fully adhering to our international policy commitments. 

According to the declaration of the Simla Agreement, signed on July 2, 1972, by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, both India and Pakistan are obligated not to change the status of any pending problem and to resolve the issue unilaterally through talks. 

Pakistan has placed a few thousand troops in Azad Kashmir to protect Kashmiri civilians from India. 

Is Indian-controlled Kashmir as autonomous as Azad Kashmir?

It has been assessed that Muslims in India’s occupied Kashmir are living under the world’s largest siege.

 In Indian-controlled Kashmir, people are only autonomous in the name. 

According to some reports, as many as 700,000 Indian soldiers are deployed throughout the Indian-controlled Kashmir territory.

Kashmiri-Canadian Council said, “approximately 95,000 Kashmiris have been killed by Indian armed forces since October 1989, and “since 1990, more than 700 to 1800 people have disappeared after being caught by Indian police or equipped paramilitary forces.”

 The Indian government has never allowed the people of Kashmir to vote on their future, so a United Nations Plebiscite or a resolution on the right to self-determination could not be implemented. 

The Narendra Modi government revoked Article 370 of the Indian constitution in 2019, which granted the Indian-occupied Kashmir some autonomy. 

Article 370 empowered the state to establish its own rules governing permanent residency, property ownership, and fundamental rights.

Articles 35a and 370 of the Indian constitution were abrogated to convert Kashmir’s Large Muslim population into a minority.

 Revoked articles could also prevent Indians from purchasing property or settling in the state of Kashmir. 

When all is said and done, Indian-controlled Kashmiris are imprisoned in the world’s largest jail and are only nominally autonomous. 

We should all be ashamed of the horrible atrocities committed by the Indian army under the nose of the United Nations.

By Shujaat Hussain Abbasi