Islamabad,Apr 13:Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has gone back to the United Nations Security Council over Jammu and Kashmir, this time over the new set of domicile rules notified by the home ministry last month. In a letter to the UNSC, Pakistan foreign minister Makhdoom Shah MahmoodQureshi accused India of taking advantage of global focus on coronavirus to change Kashmir’s demographics.
Makhdoom Shah MahmoodQureshi’s letter was sent on Sunday, barely three months after its last attempt to rake up the Kashmir issue with the backing of its all-weather ally Beijing was rejected. India’s foreign ministry hasn’t responded to Pakistan’s effort yet.
One Indian official said New Delhi will respond to Pakistan’s “three-page rant” at an appropriate time. He, however, underlined that the letter to UNSC was sent on the same day Prime Minister Imran Khan sent out a video SOS to the international community for help to deal with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In his letter to Jose Singer, the Special Envoy of the Dominican Republic who holds the UNSC President’s post this month, Pakistan alleged that the government’s new domicile rules for Jammu and Kashmir were designed to change the “demographic structure” of Jammu and Kashmir.
The Union home ministry had last month issued rules that reserve all government jobs in J&K for domiciled residents of the union territory. In this set of rules, the government had accepted demands from people who spent a lifetime in J&K that they should also be counted as residents. Accordingly, people who have lived in the UT for 15 years are being treated as domiciled residents.Pakistan said this “action and its possible consequences” had triggered fear among Kashmiris. “They are now threatened by “demographic flooding” by outsiders,” Qureshisaid.“The timing of the Indian action, at this moment of global health crisis, is particularly reprehensible as it seeks to take advantage of the international community’s focus on the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and further advance the ruling BJP’s sinister, “Hindutva” agenda,” Makhdoom Shah MahmoodQureshi said in his letter to the UNSC President.(Agencies)
