LONDON (PTI): In a change of tack, the pro Pakistan Kashmiri separatists operating in the United Kingdom have renounced militancy and are now mounting a major media offensive against India on the Kashmir issue.
Their resort to what Indian officials here described as “disinformation campaign on Kashmir” comes in the wake of reports that militancy was on the wane in the valley.
Several Kashmiri separatists’ outfits in the UK are regrouping under an umbrella organization called “World Kashmir Freedom Movement” and unitedly lobbying support for what they claim “a peaceful solution of the Kashmir Issue.” The outfits have brought out several booklets and pamphlets seeking to influence western public opinion and to counter what they describe as “India’s false case on Kashmir.”
The literature is being circulated among British MPs, intellectuals and media persons throughout Europe.
Their latest publication focuses on the instrument of Kashmir’s accession to India signed by the then Maharaja Hari Singh.
The book contests whether Maharaja Hari Singh did ever sign the instrument of accession to India.
It challenges the authenticity of the date, October 26, 1947, when the Maharaja signed the instrument of accession to India and sent a letter to Lord Mountbatten seeking Indian military aid and the appointment of Sheikh Abdullah to head the interim state government. The book claims that on October 26,1947, the Maharaja was travelling by road from Srinagar to Jammu while his prime minister M.C.Mahajan was negotiating with Indian government in Delhi, It is obvious that these documents: could only have been signed after the Indian forces landed in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, it says.
The 1948 white paper, in which government of India set out its formal case on Jammu and Kashmir says the book, does not contain the instrument of accession as claimed to have been signed by the Maharaja.
Article extracted from this publication >> February 26, 1993
