Now India plans its own apartheid wall in Kashmir

Empowering Weak & Oppressed

Crescent International

Safar 16, 1435 2013-12-19

Daily News Analysis

by Crescent International

The apartheid disease is spreading even if it ended in South Africa nearly two decades ago. The Zionists have continued their apartheid policy on the Occupied West Bank by building a separation wall and now the Indian occupiers of Kashmir plan to build a similar wall. As usual, the excuse is to keep Kashmiri militants from “infiltrating” into its side. The Kashmiris have never accepted India's occupation of the state.

Srinagar, Crescent-online
December 19, 1013, 19:17 EST

Showing complete disregard for the wishes of the Kashmiri people and trampling on international law, India plans to build a separation wall along the Line of Control in the part of Kashmir that is under its military occupation.

India is taking a leaf straight out of the Zionist book that has built an illegal wall in the West Bank separating Palestinian farmers from their lands as well as bisecting villages. The Zionists have also grabbed a lot of fertile Palestinian land.

India that collaborates closely with the Zionists in political, diplomatic, military and intelligence fields has embarked on a similar project. India’s proposed separation wall in Kashmir extending 179 km long will be much longer and higher than the Zionist Wall.

The reason India has advanced for building the wall is allegedly to prevent infiltration of Kashmiris into illegally Indian occupied Kashmir since October 1947. Ironically, India lays claim to the entire Kashmir state including the part that is with Pakistan and is called Azad (Free) Kashmir yet it is not prepared to allow Kashmiris to move about freely between the two parts.

Kashmiris struggling for freedom from Indian occupation have warned against such a move. They consider it a theft of their land and an attempt by India to tighten its grip on illegally occupied Kashmir.

Indian officials say the wall would pass through 118 villages in three districts of disputed Kashmir and would be 41 meters wide and 10 meters high to accommodate bunkers and check posts.

“It would be one of the most significant Border Guarding Systems in the country which has not been experimented or created in India before,” Dharminder Parikh, a top official of India's Border Security Force (BSF) said.

Theoretically, Kashmir enjoys autonomous status in the Indian constitution. Under international law, it is considered disputed territory. There are at least 15 Security Council resolutions dating from 1948 calling for a referendum to be held in the state to determine the wishes of the people. Indian rulers initially pledged to honor these resolutions but as Delhi tightened its military grip on the state, it has backed out of legally binding resolutions and pledges.

India’s move is completely illegal. The Kashmiris have never recognized the occupation of their state by India. They have struggled against such occupation from even before 1947. Since 1989, there has been an uprising in Kashmir in which more than 100,000 Kashmiri civilians have died at the hands of Indian occupation forces.

India maintains 700,000 occupation troops in Kashmir of which 300,000 are in Srinagar, capital of the state. Kashmir remains the most militarized place in the world.

According to the UN, the line separating Indian-occupied Kashmir from Azad Kashmir is called the Line of Control to emphasize its disputed nature. India, on the other hand, calls it the “International Boundary”. No country recognizes the legitimacy of India’s occupation of Kashmir.

India’s planned separation wall is another attempt to tighten its grip on the region and to divide the Kashmiris permanently.

India and Pakistan, both nuclear armed, have fought three wars over Kashmir. Another war could easily escalate into a nuclear exchange with catastrophic consequences not only for the region but the entire world.

END

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