Kashmiris are innocent victims

Kashmiris are innocent victims
Shabir Choudhry
Email: drsabirchoudhry@gmail.com

JKLF leader Shabir Choudhry said international community must understand difference between terrorism and freedom struggle. Those who are struggling to get their basic human rights including right to determine their future could not be accused of 'terrorism', if anything they are innocent victims of terrorism.

Terrorist is a person who kills innocent people in order to achieve his objectives, and that objective could be political, financial or something else. A freedom fighter fights for his rights and rights of fellow citizens, and does not kill innocent civilians; any one who does this could not be called a freedom fighter. That person or a group has other motives and could possibly be working against the interests of the freedom struggle by tarnishing its image. Shabir Choudhry said these people are deliberately 'launched' to give bad name to the movement.

He said worst kind of terrorism is state terrorism. Primary role of any government is to protect life and property of its citizens; and what we have witnessed in Kashmir is a deliberate policy of killing innocent people in order to crush a genuine freedom struggle. Kashmiri people are killed by Para-military forces of India and they are also killed as a result of cross border firing. Whether it is the Indian army shelling across the LOC or the Pakistani army, victims of these artillery exchanges are innocent people of Kashmir. In both cases it is the Kashmiri blood and a Kashmiri life that is lost.

Shabir Choudhry said we are a liberal and democratic organisation fighting for the rights of the Kashmir people. Our struggle is the unification and independence of Kashmir from both India and Pakistan. We believe there is no military solution of the Kashmir dispute. The dispute has to be resolved through a process of negotiations between all the parties to the dispute. It is not a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan that they could resolve it bilaterally, as the issue concerns the basic and inherent right of self determination of the people of Kashmir we must be part of the negotiations.

Before this dispute engulfs India and Pakistan into another destructive war, we urge the international community to use their influence on India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir dispute through a process of trilateral talks.
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