India’s ‘wicked’ delimitation exercise in occupied Kashmir is condemned by the OIC.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) Independent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC) “strongly denounced” the Indian government’s recent delimitation of election constituencies in occupied Jammu and Kashmir, calling it a breach of OIC and UN Security Council resolutions.
New Delhi released a new list of reconfigured parliamentary constituencies for Indian-occupied Kashmir last week, giving Hindu communities in the Muslim-majority region more representation and opening the way for new elections.
In an effort to tighten its hold over the region, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government split the Indian-controlled territory into two federal territories in 2019. Originally, the conquered region included the predominantly Muslim Kashmir Valley and the Hindu-dominated Jammu.
The delimitation panel claimed that accommodating competing claims from multiple sides had been challenging, citing the region’s “unique geo-cultural context” in a statement.
The OIC’s human rights committee issued a statement today calling India’s decision a violation of international human rights and humanitarian law.
“As a result, the IPHRC endorses the unequivocal rejection of these illegal actions by the Kashmiri political leadership, which are a continuation of the host of other ‘Hindutva’ inspired illegal moves taken by the Indian occupation regime in IOJK in the aftermath of the 5th August 2019,” it stated.
The statement highlighted that Kashmir’s political leadership has consistently rejected and boycotted electoral politics in the occupied region, and that India’s attempt to redraw election constituencies there had been criticized as a result.
The act was described by the OIC as “a malicious endeavor to manipulate election demography and dynamics in order to affect sham electoral results and install puppet governments of its choosing.”
“These wicked measures aim to convert the indigenous Muslim population into a minority within their homeland and obstruct the exercise of their inalienable right to self-determination,” the statement said, adding that the measures were in violation of several human rights treaties, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibited any change in the demographics of occupied areas.
It also urged the UN and the international community to exert pressure on India to comply with relevant UNSC and OIC resolutions and desist from any administrative or legislative acts that would change the status quo.
