NEW DELHI: India last week lashed Out at Pakistan’s blatant efforts to disrupt the holding of elections in Jammu and Kashmir and reiterated its position that Pakistan vacates areas of the state which are under its “illegal and forcible occupation.”
Reacting to a resolution on Jammu and Kashmir adopted on Monday the Pakistan National Assembly, an External Affairs Ministry spokesman Said the Assembly “has no locus standi to pronounce on matters within the sovereign jurisdiction of India.”
The National Assembly had unanimously passed a resolution supporting the All Party Hurriyat Conference’s call for a strike in Kashmir last week to protest against the holding of general elections in the stale.
India categorically rejects the “blatant attempt at interference in the internal affairs” of the country, the spokesman said.
Describing the resolution area complete travesty of the facts regarding the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, the spokesman said, “its total distortions of the truth, and its immediate and virulent language makes it clear that this is a continuation of Pakistan’s persistent malicious propaganda exercise against India.”
Reiterating India’s position that Pakistan move out of Pak Occupied Kashmir, the spokesman said “the only issue concerning Pakistan, with regard to the State related to the vacation of Pakistan from those areas of the state which are under its illegal and forcible occupation.”
‘The MEA also rejected as “base Tess” the allegation leveled by Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto that India was responsible for the recent bomb blasts in the Punjab province.
Accusing Islamabad of resorting to a desperate effort to thwart the return of peace and normalcy in Jammu and Kashmir through the democratic and electoral process, the Ministry spokes ‘man said Pakistan’s blatant sponsorship of global militancy, directed in particular against India, was well documented and widely recognized.
“The people of Pakistan are suffering the consequences of the culture of violence and militancy actively developed and propagated over the years by Pakistan government agencies.”
Public opinion in Kashmir had seen through Islamabad’s designs and has “turned against its hirelings,” the spokesman said in a statement, adding that Pakistan, instead of persisting in false and absurd accusations against India, “should make an honest reassessment of its own misguided policies and actions.”
Article extracted from this publication >> May 15, 1996
