Pakistan on Friday categorically rejected India’s baseless remarks regarding the upcoming elections in Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B), describing the outlandish claims as part of New Delhi’s “carefully choreographed attempt to conflate fact with fiction”.
The statement came after India, in a statement issued by its foreign ministry earlier in the day, objected to the elections in G-B, claiming that “the entire Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including the so-called ‘Gilgit-Baltistan’, are integral and inalienable parts of India”.
General elections in G-B are scheduled to be held on June 7 after being postponed for four months due to severe winter conditions. Political parties, including the PPP and PML-N, had intensified their campaigns across the region, holding rallies and corner meetings ahead of the polls, as electioneering concluded at midnight on Friday.
Pakistan's Firm Response
“We unequivocally reject this latest Indian rhetoric with the contempt it deserves,” the Foreign Office said in a statement, accusing India of being a global leader in propagating fake narratives and tendentious propaganda.
Reiterating Pakistan’s stance on the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), the FO said the Kashmir dispute remained the longest unresolved item on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council, originating from India’s forcible and unlawful occupation of the territory in 1947.
“The only just and durable settlement of the dispute lies in the faithful implementation of the relevant UN Security Council resolutions, which guarantee the Kashmiri people their inalienable right to self-determination through a free and impartial plebiscite under UN auspices,” it added.
Human Rights Concerns
The Foreign Office further said that India’s assertions regarding G-B could not divert attention from what it described as grave and systematic human rights violations in IIOJK.
“The continued impunity enjoyed by Indian forces under draconian laws in the occupied territory was another dimension of what it termed state terrorism against unarmed Kashmiris,” said the statement.
Pakistan called on India to vacate all occupied territories, reverse all illegal and unilateral actions taken in IIOJK, particularly since August 5, 2019, repeal all draconian laws, and allow access to neutral observers, international human rights and humanitarian organisations, and international media to assess the situation on the ground while urging that the Kashmiri people be allowed to exercise their right to self-determination in accordance with relevant UN Security Council resolutions.
