US must pressure India to end militarized curfew over Kashmir: Asad Majeed

Asad Majeed said India has actually laid down the ground to influence the demography of the state.

WASHINGTON (Web Desk) - Pakistan’s Ambassador to United States, Asad Majeed Khan, has urged the US and the international community to “do more” to pressurize India to end its “militarized curfew” over the occupied Himalayan valley of Kashmir, stressing that the Narendra Modi-led Indian government has turned the Muslim majority region into “practically a concentration camp”.

Speaking to the Washington Times for an exclusive interview, Ambassador Asad Majeed Khan noted that the barbaric measures undertaken by India’s Prime Minister have confined Kashmiri Muslims into a “concentration camp” given the harsh restrictions on movement and everyday routine.

Asad Majeed Khan lamented that millions of Kashmiris living in Indian-occupied Jammu & Kashmir have been placed under a harsh security lockdown, which resembles a concentration camp, as civilians are denied access to electricity, life-saving medicines, telephones and internet for almost a month.

He stated, “Thousands are being put in prison. The world needs to be aware.”

Ambassador Khan praised US President Donald Trump for not taking sides in the long-standing Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan, however, he noted that the US must do more. Asad Majeed Khan said, “No other country has the same clout or influence as the United States of America to basically urge India, to nudge India.”

He continued, “India has actually laid down the ground to influence the demography of the state. They want to alter the ethnic composition of the state.”

Addressing the agendas of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Pakistani Ambassador noted that the Modi administration is closely aligned with Hindu nationalists who seek erect India into a historic Hindu homeland that has been ruled by invaders for centuries.

Highlighting Narendra Modi’s history as the Chief Minister of India’s state of Gujarat, he shed light on 2002 Gujarat Massacre, when the Indian state was marred with violence between the Hindu and Muslim communities. Reports reveal that the massacre resulted in around 1000 deaths of Muslims, while 300 Hindus also died during the riots.

Ambassador Khan noted that Modi’s role in instigating the violence had led to him being temporarily banned from entering the United States on orders of the US State Department. However, the world was shocked as he rose to power and assumed the Prime Ministerial office of India in 2014.

Asad Majeed commented, “Look back at his career. He was someone who was banned from coming into the United States because of what he had done in Gujarat in terms of killing thousands of Muslims.”

Ambassador Khan observed that India’s recent decision to abolish Article 370 of the Indian Constitution and scrape away the constitutional rights of Kashmiris is fueled by an agenda that stretches well-beyond forceful land occupation.

He said that these recent Indian measures in Kashmir are “not just about the dispute over land but the right of self-determination of the people, and I think what India has done is try to take away the identity of a people by reconstituting the territory, by redesigning areas.