WASHINGTON: Digital advertising trucks displayed sharp messages around this capital city about Indian atrocities in Kashmir and demanding an end to the disputed state’s occupation as Kashmiris and their supporters staged protests marking Kashmir Black Day.
The electronic screens mounted on the trucks carried messages such as: “No Election, No Selection: UN Resolutions Only Solution” and “India: Stop Land Grabbing in Kashmir.”
Rented by Washington-based, ‘World Kashmir Awareness Forum,’ a Washington-based advocacy group, the vehicles drove around some of the landmarks in Washington, DC, including Capitol Hill, the White House, State Department, the Washington Monument, embassies, various museums, and National Mall, among others.
Other messages beamed from the trucks were: “Stop: India’s Demographic Change in Kashmir,” “Indian Army Out of Kashmir,” “Hold India Accountable for War Crimes in Kashmir,” “Elections in Kashmir Just a Name: Indian Government Has No Shame.”
Dr. Ghulam N. Mir, President of the World Kashmir Awareness Forum and Chairman of the Kashmir Diaspora Coalition, said that the sufferings inflicted by the Indian settler-colonialism on Kashmiris go hand-in-hand with the terror being perpetrated by Israel on the innocent men, women, and children in occupied Palestine.
“The only solution to the mass suffering, dehumanization, and dispossession is our dogged political resistance to the occupation and settler-colonization, just like it is for the people of Palestine,” Dr.Mir said, adding that the Indians and Israelis were collaborators in annexing, occupying and settler-colonial projects.
“Palestinians and Kashmiris must resist to survive for their own sake and their posterity,” he said.
Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, Chairman of the World Forum for Peace & Justice said the people of Jammu & Kashmir were dismayed by the lack of action by the world powers to help stop the carnage in Kashmir and by their virtual indifference to the situation in their occupied land.
“The disparity between their inaction and their repeated assertion that the protection of human rights and encouragement for democratic solutions are their major foreign policy goals is hard for them to understand”, he said. “Nevertheless, the people of Kashmir still have confidence that the world powers will realize that what is at stake in the dispute is not only the survival of the people of Kashmir but peace in the populous region of South Asia and the world.”
Dr. Fai added, “We fail to understand who prevents the world leaders, including President Joe Biden of the United States, from using their moral authority to persuade the violators of the international laws to abide by the democratic values and universal principles?”
Dr. Imtiaz Khan, the Kashmir-American scholar, warned that the international community’s silence over this long-standing issue was heartbreaking. “It appears that India is being given a free hand to inflict atrocities on the people of Kashmir, ” he said.
Dr. Khan added that land grab push by occupation forces is continuing at breakneck speed and thousands of acres of land has been taken over by the occupation forces. Kashmiri people were being devoid of their property and armed Hindu militants are being settled on these properties.
In an appeal to international community, Dr. Khan said that the time for issuing empty statements has passed as India has refused to budge from her immoral stand. “It is high time India is made to understand the consequences of reneging on her promise in terms of sanctions and censure by the world community. ”
Sardar Zarif Khan, Advisor to the President of Azad Kashmir. said that the Indian-occupied Kashmir has been converted into a concentration camp. Any voice of dissent is met by long-term imprisonment or even death. Otherwise, what is the crime of Khurram Parvez, except that he documented atrocities committed by Indian army? And what is the crime of Yasin Malik, except that he does not want to compromise on Aazadi?
Sardar Shoaib Irshad, General Secretary, of the Kashmir American Welfare Association (KAWA), and Sardar Aftab Roshan Khan, leader of Washington metropolitan Kashmiri American community, were among those who spoke on the occasion.
