India threatens to 'reclaim' parts of Kashmir under Pakistani control

By Hilal Mir

SRINAGAR, Jammu and Kashmir (AA) – Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said on Thursday that India's story will be completed the day it "reclaims" Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and Gilgit-Baltistan regions from Pakistan.

Singh was speaking at a gathering in Srinagar to commemorate the landing of the Indian armed forces in Indian-administered Kashmir 75 years ago, which is celebrated every year as "Shaurya Divas" or Day of Bravery.

New Delhi has long contended that Indian forces were sent after tribal people from the neighboring North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) arrived in the region, with Hindu Dogra ruler Hari Singh asking for help.

On Oct. 27, 1947, Indian troops positioned themselves in Kashmir’s largest city, Srinagar, after India and Pakistan gained their independence from British colonial rule. The anniversary of this Indian action is observed by Pakistanis and Kashmiris as “Black Day,” while India commemorates it as “Shaurya Divas.” The region has been a source of tension between India and Pakistan ever since.

Since then, the picturesque valley has been a bone of contention between the two nuclear archrivals that have fought two full-fledged wars – in 1948 and 1965 – and a three-week Kargil skirmish on Kashmir.

While one-third of the region, known as Azad Kashmir, is administered by Pakistan, two-thirds of the disputed Himalayan valley is controlled by India.

Following this first battle, the divided Jammu and Kashmir became an UN-recognized dispute, which for the past 32 years has been raging in the form of an anti-India insurgency.

While India celebrates the day as "Shaurya Divas," the day was observed as a “black day” in Kashmir on the call of pro-freedom leadership. Kashmiris would shut shops and businesses on this day, until Aug. 5, 2019, when the Indian government scrapped the region’s autonomous status and jailed most of the pro-freedom leadership.

"I want to ask Pakistan what rights it has given to the people in the areas it has occupied. Pakistan sheds crocodile tears in the name of human rights and we are aware of how concerned it is for the people of these regions," Singh said.

"We often get reports of inhuman acts against these Indian citizens there and Pakistan is completely responsible for human rights violations in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. History bears witness to the fact that the regimes and rulers who have oppressed people have to pay a price for that. Pakistan is sowing the seeds of atrocity in occupied Kashmir and in the coming times it will pay the price," he said.

He said "our journey will be completed” with the implementation of a resolution passed by the Indian parliament on 22 Feb. 1949, which claimed that Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Gilgit and Baltistan were parts of India.

"Only then the dreams of Shankaracharya and Sardar Vallabbhai Patel will be fulfilled," Singh said.

Shankaracharya is an eighth-century Hindu sage who is said to have visited Kashmir when Kashmir was nearly entirely Hindu. Sardar Patel is an icon of the Hindu right and the first home minister of India who brought hundreds of princely states of British India into the Indian Union after 1947.

"With the help of the people of this place and the armed forces, the day is not far that these promises will be fulfilled soon," Singh said.