Srinagar: Hurriyat Conference on Tuesday appealed to the international community to take cognizance of the “systemic demographic change being foisted upon Muslim majority” in Jammu and Kashmir by settling outsiders here including through a “new policy of sale of land and natural resources to them”.
In a statement, Hurriyat said, “The Government of India wants to change the demographic character of the Muslim majority in JK and disempower its residents through such diktats and measures in order to scuttle the final resolution of the long-standing international political dispute of Kashmir in accordance with the will and aspirations of its people as promised by the international community, based on principles of justice and international law.”
“Since August 2019, in succession one after other authoritarian laws and diktats” are being implemented in JK towards this end and to “facilitate” the electoral prospects of the ruling party in India as JK has become its favourite whipping boy,” the statement said.
It added, the ruling dispensation is pursuing the “divide and rule policy by dividing the population of JK” on the basis of religions, regions, ethnicities, and political interests to fracture political aspirations and voices.
Hurriyat said that the situation in JK is “deeply disconcerting and highly repressive as people are at the receiving end of this colonial mindset”.
It asked people not to lose hope but stay vigilant and alert to these measures, and safeguard their right over their land and resources as much as possible, the statement added.
On Monday, the Jammu and Kashmir Real Estate Summit (2021), organized jointly by India’s Ministry for Housing and Urban Affairs and the JK administration, was held in Jammu.
39 Memorandum of Understandings (MOUs) were signed and 19 dealt with the construction of residential homes.
Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha said that Srinagar will also host Real Estate Summit on May 23 this year and that will “pave way for Kashmir’s development on the real estate front”.
Calling it a “historical transformation in JK”, the administration said it had changed laws to allow external investment in JK including the purchase of non-agricultural land.
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