Kashmiris, Sikhs urge UN to help secure their rights

JK, India: Sikh and Kashmiri organisations labelling the India’s Constitution part of the problem, not the solution to the grave threats to Punjab and Kashmir called upon the UN to take the lead in restoring respect for their rights. Protesting outside India’s High Commission in London on India’s Republic Day, they characterised Indian control over Punjab and Kashmir as illegal and demanded UN intervention to prevent further bloodshed and state-terrorism,Kashmir Media Service reported.

In a joint protest, the Kashmiris and Sikhs also called upon the UN to take the lead in establishing criminal tribunals to punish those in the Indian establishment who have directed the abuses in the two territories.

Amrik Singh Sahota, President of the Council of Khalistan said therecent skirmishes on the Line of Control served as a grave reminder that the region “remains at risk of catastrophic conflict, with Sikhs and Kashmiris having the most to lose and yet having no voice on the international stage.”

He said India uses both state and non-state actors to create terror inthe region. The Indian Home Minister Shinde’s admission that Hindu terror was behind numerous recent terror attacks “only confirms what the world already knows.”

Professor Shawl of London’s Kashmir Centre, warned against international complacency, which could allow serious conflict in the region to again develop. It was the duty of UN to stop state terror and to implement international law. Without self-determination, the region would continue to be unstable and the theatre of gross injustice for the hapless sons of the soil.