February 5 is observed every year in Pakistan and Kashmir as Kashmir Solidarity Day, to renew the determination of the people of Pakistan and their Muslim brethren in Kashmir to liberate their land from Indian occupation.

Kashmir has an overwhelming population of Muslims. According to the principle of the partition of the British India into two independent states of Pakistan and India in August 1947, the territory of Kashmir had to be part of Pakistan. Geographically and culturally too, Kashmir is closer to Pakistan than to India. But in flagrant violation of the principles of the partition and the wishes of the people, India invaded Kashmir by air lifting its troops. The Indian army suppressed the uprising of the Kashmiri Muslims in favor of joining the Muslim majority Pakistan. The Indian action led to a war between the India and Pakistan. After a few months the United Nations arranged a ceasefire between the two states.

Later the UN Security Council decided that the people of Kashmir be enabled to exercise their right to self determination to decide whether they wanted to join Pakistan or India. While the two parties in the conflict the people of Kashmir and Pakistan, were happy at the Security Council's resolution, India knowing what the verdict of the Kashmir Muslims would be, started dragging feet. At first it create procedural hurdles in the way of free and fair plebiscite in the occupied state, but later it became quite apparent that India was not at all prepared to let the Kashmiris decide their political future. It wriggled out of its commitment at the UN and declared Kashmir as its integral part, which was in open contravention to the UN Security Council resolution and of India's own earlier commitment.

Repeated uprisings of the Kashmir Muslims were met by brutal use of force by India. Indian atrocities on the Kashmiris and its obduracy over the UN resolutions resulted in another war with Pakistan in 1965. After the end of that war India became more adamant on its denial of Kashmiris' right to self determination. It ceased all talk of any plebiscite and taking advantage of Pakistan's break-up in 1971, it even refused to recognize the existence of Kashmir dispute, calling it only a bilateral issue between the two countries. India then also started efforts to completely withdraw the Kashmir dispute from the UN agenda.

Meanwhile, the Kashmiri Muslims faced with disappointment resorted to a renewed struggle from late 80s. During the past 20 years, thousands of Kashmiri Muslims have been martyred by the Indian forces and thousands of others have gone missing or are rotting in Indian jails. There have been periodical uprisings in the occupied state which are brutally suppressed by the Indian occupation army in Kashmir, which numbers 600,000 soldiers, the largest concentration of troops any where in the world today. More than 2000 unmarked graves suspected to be of Kashmiri Muslim youths, have been discovered at scattered places in the Indian occupied area.

Kashmiris are among the most persecuted groups of Muslims today. All claims of India about its commitment to peace and democracy come to naught when seen in the perspective of India's obduracy on the Kashmir issue and its atrocities on the Kashmir Muslims demanding their right to self determination and freedom.

Unfortunately, for various reasons the case of the Kashmiri Muslims has remained largely hidden from the eyes of the world, most people even in the Muslim world regard it as a bilateral matter between Pakistan and India It is time that at least the Muslim countries should know about the plight of their Kashmiri brethren, the history of their struggle for freedom from the Indian yoke and the brutalities of the Indian occupation troops in Kashmir.

---