An Open Letter of a Kashmiri girl to United Nations Security Council (UNSC)

Respected Permanent Members of UNSC,

Thank you so much you have taken the issue of genocide of Kashmiris in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IoK) after over a million Kashmiris had been purged during the last 50 years in the Valley.

However, I want to ask you that why you (UNSC) is keeping your debate in closed-door session and in-camera?

Are you waiting for complete purge of Kashmiris in IoK so there would be nobody to raise the issue soon if speed of genocide continues with the same pace Modi Sarkar is doing?

I am writing this letter to ask you only one question—- Why not we Kashmiri living in Indian Occupied Kashmir are not receiving any protection and clear statement from UNSC and its directions to the Indian government to stop inhuman and illegal actions including:

1. Unconstitutional annexation, arbitrary partitioning and bifurcation, militarisation and occupation of former State of Jammu and Kashmir against the will of the indigenous people, international laws, UN Charter, relevant UNSC resolutions, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil Rights and other covenants regarding the rights of oppressed, disenfranchised and colonised people;
2. Arbitrary Removal of “Special Status”, unconstitutional abrogation of an otherwise fig leaf of Article 370 and modification of Article 35A and bifurcation of Indian-held J&K ostensibly for ethnic cleansing and demographic transformation of Kashmiri identity and Kshmiryat and usurpation of resources of Kashmir at the hands of Hindu communalists and fascists who pose no lesser a threat to the secular and democratic character of the Republic of India and its democratic people and working masses, the minorities in particular;
3. Blanket imposition of prolonged Curfew, persecution and torture of innocent people, mass arrests and abductions of peaceful activists, killings and fatally injuring youth and children with the use of pellet guns, censorship and cutting off all communications, sexual harassment and rapes of women as a weapon of colonisation in the Indian-held Kashmir, which are some of the symptoms of a fascist Modi-led BJP Government;
4. Fanning of Jingoism, war hysteria and raising the spectre of conventional and nuclear war that could threaten South Asia’s existence and global echo system;
5. Lack of effective intervention by the international community to avert arbitrary changes and brewing human catastrophe.

I believe that closed-door and in-camera session of UNSC will not stop Modi government’s fascist tactics and authoritarian and brutal steps.

I want an immediate end to curfew, imprisonments, confinements, atrocities, killings, harassment, rapes of women, censorship, suspension of all forms of communication.

I dream restoration of all fundamental human and civil rights including right to safety and life, freedom of expression and assembly, press freedom, freedom to travel without hindrance, access to health, education services and all necessary human needs without further delay.

I want that UNSC orders Indian Sarkar for allowing international human rights bodies including UN Human Rights monitors, UN Observers and international media to asses and report about the human rights situation in all parts of IoK.

And I want that pending plebiscite under the auspices of the UN must be held without further delay.

I want UNSC to direct Indian Sarkar to allow me and millions of Kashmiri girls to live normal lives without fear, oppression, dejection and must not be object of genocide.

I believe my all demands to UNSC are within the parameter of its Charter and long-awaited.

Please help me before my voice is silenced—

A Kashmiri girl Abida Bhatt who is student of Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi