Author:
Publication: www.tehelka.com
Date: November 27, 2001
URL: http://www.tehelka.com/channels/currentaffairs/2001/nov/26/ca112601pok.htm
The underground political movement
of Pakistan-occupied Gilgit and Baltistan look to India for support in
highlighting the oppression and deprivation faced by their people at the
hands of Pakistani governments down the years, says V K Shashikumar
New Delhi, November 26
An unknown freedom struggle is quietly
taking shape in Pakistan. Leaders of an underground political movement
in Pakistan-occupied Gilgit and Baltistan (POGB) are appealing to India
to highlight the plight of the "two million downtrodden people" that they
claim to represent. People living in the so-called Northern Areas (originally
part of the undivided state of Jammu and Kashmir) have been "kept in slavery,
and deprived of human rights, political rights, freedom of speech and expression,
freedom of movement, right to justice, economic and cultural freedom,"
says Abdul Hamid Khan, chairperson, Balawaristan National Front (BNF).
BNF is spearheading a political
movement for the liberation of POGB. Khan, like most BNF leaders, is living
on the run. "Our lives are in danger, and we are wary of Inter-Service
Intelligence (ISI) agents getting to know our whereabouts," he said. POGB
is a very resource rich, as also strategically positioned, area.
"Balawaristan extends from Shinaki
Kohistan to Chitral, and from Khunjrab to Baltistan and Ladakh," Khan told
tehelka.com from somewhere in POGB. According to him, the Balawar nation
includes the Balti, Brooshoo (Yashkon), Sheen, Khoh (Chitrali) and Wakhi
people, and those Kashmiris, Gujjars, Kohistanis, Pathans, Turks and Hazaris
who inhabited Gilgit-Baltistan before November 1, 1947. On this day, elements
of 6 J&K Regiment rebelled against the Maharaja Hari Singh, and arrested
the governor, Brigadier Ghansara Singh, appointed by the ruler.
According to Khan, the Government
of India, through its High Commission, "maintains liaison links" with the
BNF, but it has done nothing to highlight the Pakistani oppression in POGB.
With the world's attention riveted to eliminating terrorism and preventing
countries from sponsoring it, the BNF hopes that the world community will
pressurise Pakistan to lift its iron curtain over POGB.
"We, the people of POGB, are victims
of Pakistani sectarian terrorism. The ISI sends hundreds of Pakistani,
Afghani and Kashmiri terrorists across the border to carry out terrorist
activities in Indian-held Kashmir, by using our soil from Baltistan and
Astore. In retaliation, the Indian Army killed many of our people, and
destroyed our properties, displacing hundreds of civilians. Many of our
innocent youth belonging to the Wahabi sect were instigated by the ISI
and sent to Afghanistan and Indian-held Kashmir to fight against the Northern
Alliance and the Indian Army, respectively. Hundreds of our young Northern
Light Infantry (NLI) soldiers were used by Pakistan during the Kargil conflict
as canon fodder," Khan told tehelka.
The BNF wants the US-led international
coalition against terrorism to take appropriate action against Pakistan
for sponsoring terrorism, not only in Jammu and Kashmir, but also in POGB.
"Pakistan is now part of the international coalition, but that does not
absolve it from its support for terrorism," says Khan. "The United States
should beware of those who disguise themselves as anti-terrorists to evade
the grip of the civilised world," he added.
The leadership of the movement for
Balawaristan says, "The tentacles of the Taliban and Al Qaeda were only
seen when the US came under terrorist attack on September 11." BNF leaders
want the international community to take note of the fact that Pakistan,
and not Afghanistan, is the centre of "terror factories".
"We, the people of POGB are seriously
concerned about terrorism, having been prey to it for almost a decade.
The Pakistan government, whether military or civil, has been providing
unlimited funds and powers to the ISI to establish more and more terrorist
training camps and other facilities to terrorise its opponents in Pakistan,
POGB, POK (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir), Afghanistan, Indian-held Kashmir
(IOK) and other countries. ISI recruits unemployed youth of a particular
sect (Sunni) and brainwashes them against other sects of Islam, such as
Shia, Ismailia and Brelvi moderate Muslims, as also other religions by
terming them 'infidels'."
Says Khan, "The campaign of killing
Shia Muslims throughout Pakistan, and the assassination of a top Brelvi
Muslim leader Maulana Saleem Qadri by Sipah-e-Sahabah and Jaish-e-Mohammad
in Karachi, was an example of such terrorism being nourished by the ISI."
He says that a genocide campaign against the Shia Muslims of Gilgit in
1988 by General Zia-ul-Haq, and the death of NLI soldiers who were sent
to the heights of Kargil, were part of the ISI conspiracy against the powerless
and helpless people of POGB. The ISI's ultimate aim was to pave the way
for the Taliban to conquer this disputed region forever.
"The Afghani and Pakistani Pathans
and other Wahabi terrorists torched more than two dozen Shia mosques, along
with the holy Quran. Hundreds of people were killed; many were converted
to the Wahabi sect in military camps. Many girls kidnapped at that time
are still untraced. Hundreds of our people were forced to abandon their
properties in different parts of Gilgit," says Khan.
Speaking about the Kargil misadventure,
Khan says, "900 NLI soldiers died, hundreds became disabled, and 40 soldiers,
including a major, are still missing. Pakistan disowned the sacrifices
of our youth (NLI soldiers) by terming the Kargil misadventure an act of
so-called Kashmiri terrorists (Pakistan calls them as 'mujahideen'). The
bodies of 300 NLI soldiers were buried on the Kargil mountains. Pakistan
had refused to accept them, just as it did recently, when the dead bodies
of some Pakistani terrorists were brought from Afghanistan, when they were
killed in US air attack. Pakistan only accepted two dead bodies of its
own nationals in the Kargil War."
The BNF wants the US to aggressively
push for democracy with Pakistan. "Countries that prevent the peaceful
political activities of opponents should be punished. Otherwise, terrorism
cannot be eliminated. Pakistan does not allow political activities of nationalist
parties in its occupied areas. All that the parties in these areas ask
for is their birthright of freedom," says Khan. More than 120 political
workers and leaders of POGB were arrested and tortured, and sedition charges
(section 124 A) were registered against them.
The people of POGB have no right
of appeal in a higher court. If a person residing in Gilgit-Baltistan is
sentenced to death by the judicial system put in place by Pakistan, that
person has no right of appeal in any High Court or Supreme Court. The court
in POGB does not entertain even writ petitions against human rights violations.
"The judicial system imposed by Pakistan in POGB has the power to award
death sentences to the local people, and can confiscate their property
arbitrarily. The government of Pakistan has not complied even with the
orders of its own Supreme Court, which had declared in 1999 that the chief
court in POGB be upgraded to a higher court, and that political rights
be devolved to the local people," Khan told tehelka.
