London-based prominent Kashmiri intellectual, Syed Inayatullah Andrabi, has termed August 5, 2019 as one of the key dates in India’s strategic management of its occupation of Kashmir and said that it was ultimately the day when New Delhi threw away all the pretensions and deceptions of the so-called special status, laying a complete siege on the territory and its people as an aggressor does.
In a Twitter thread on Thursday, Andrabi said that viewed against its milestones, India’s campaign to permanently grab Kashmir, though apparently well calibrated, has come to naught with 5th August 2019 marking the climax. Going in circles for last 7 decades, he said, India has come full circle to its pre-370 relationship with Kashmir in 1949.
Noting down the key dates in India’s management of occupation of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), he said New Delhi initiated its brutal campaign with its military invasion on 27th October 1947.
He said that on 17th October 1949, Article 370 was incorporated in Indian constitution as a sop to the newly emerged power hungry elites headed by the late Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah enabling them to politically secure the occupation, adding, then on 9th August 1953, an era of naked proxy rule was initiated in Kashmir hollowing out the Article 370 in the process.
The Kashmiri scholar pointed out that on 24th February 1975, Sheikh-Indira accord was signed to absorb and neutralize organized opposition to India’s rule in Kashmir and ultimately on 5th August, 2019, India threw away all the pretensions and deceptions of the so-called special status and laid a complete siege on the territory and its people as an aggressor does.
Stating that for Kashmir and its people, the day of important milestone remains 27th October 1947, he maintained that this gave birth to Kashmir issue, and consequently to freedom movement which in essence as well as its empirical manifestation over the last 73 years, has been a movement against India’s occupation.
