Hurriyat (G) chairman, Syed Ali Shah Geelani Friday wrote an open letter to Governor NN Vohra, reading: “problem of Kashmir is essentially a political problem in need of a political solution.”According to a statement issued to KNS, “As the primary agent of Indian rule in occupied Jammu and Kashmir you must be very well in know that during the last seventy years the actions of your country have left tens of thousands of people dead in Jammu and Kashmir,” reads the letter.“Your army enforcedly disappeared thousands of people mostly youth, staged fake encounters, arbitrarily arrested and tortured the youth, destroyed property and resorted to arson and plunder as a collective punishment and as a war weapon against a population resisting Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir,” it adds.“Your state used all means of repression in the book including, systematic sexualized violence, to subdue our movement for freedom and justice. And you have found that a nation that has resolved to achieve freedom cannot be defeated,” it reads.“The past seventy years are a testimony to the courage, fortitude, resistance, resilience and repeated resurgence of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. The history of freedom struggles across the world bear witness that military might and repression has always failed in the face of peoples’ yearning and determination for freedom,” it adds.“You very well know that the problem of Kashmir is essentially a political problem in need of a political solution.
Because of the non-resolution of this issue the whole region lives in a state of fear, uncertainty and mistrust. Wars have been fought, thousands of lives lost, blood spilled but to no avail. This situation has remained so because of India’s refusal to grant right of self-determination to the people of Jammu and Kashmir, although India took this issue to the United Nations where many resolutions in this regard are pending implementation,” it reads.“Holding a referendum for the right to self-determination is the only way forward. As you are the key agency to oversee implementation of Indian policy in Jammu and Kashmir, it is your moral duty to convey Indian State to accept that Kashmir is a political problem and hence can only be resolved politically and not militarily. No amount of military might will resolve it as has been made evident over and over again in the past seven decades,” it adds.“Tell your state and your people not to soak their hands further in the blood of people who are just asking for their basic human and political right to which each individual and nation is entitled. We call on your conscience to help end this long chapter of deception, tyranny, death and destruction,” it reads. (KNS)