Secretary General of United Nations António Guterres has expressed his inability to visit Kashmir due to 'pressing commitments' after Kashmir Centre for Social and Development Studies (KCSDS) urged him to get first hand information of the ground reality in the state.
"Secretary General appreciates your kind invitation. Regrettably, he will be unable to accept your invitation, owing to prior commitments and pressing demands already scheduled during his visit. Allow me to take this opportunity to convey his best wishes," reads reply from UN Secretary General's office.
In a communiqué addressed to Secretary General of UN, KCSDS had requested him to visit Kashmir to get first hand information of the ground reality.
"As you are visiting India at a time of grave crisis in the disputed State of Jammu and Kashmir, the civil society—Kashmir Centre for Social and Development Studies (KCSDS) considers it a great opportunity to invite you to visit Kashmir to have a first-hand information and experience of the ground reality of Kashmir and the 'ordered and monitored disorder' with the highest military concentration armed with AFSPA, the most draconian illegal lawless law, which is presented as a natural democratic order before the world community."
"Your Excellency! The gross human rights violations, crimes against humanity and the dire need to let the people of Kashmir rights violations, crimes against humanity and the dire need to let the people exercise their right to self determination exercise their right to self determination has been comprehensively covered by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights for which we will be eternally thankful to you though it came too late yet it is never too late as Kashmir, the paradise on earth, continues to smoulder and burn," the letter reads.
It states that there is "dance of death and destruction everywhere particularly in the valley of Kashmir". Besides, Indian Government through its sponsored bureaucracy and its security agencies is on the rampage, plundering resources, taking decisions that further disempower indigenous people, in short, taking illegitimate control of every institution in the state.
"So far there has been no affirmative action by the Government of India on the ground in response to your detailed report, as desired by the world body. Instead it has been in firm denial of any wrong-doing in Kashmir, flying in the face of hard incontrovertible evidence and only clinging to the integral party mantra. You are aware of the fact how instead Indian government and its various agencies dismissed the report with disdain and arrogance of power and leveled allegations against your commissioner," the KCSDS communique states.
"We greatly appreciate your sticking to your guns and reiterating the authenticity of the report not only by the former, Zeid Raad Al Hussein but by the incumbent Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet and the owning of it holistically by you as the report of UN and not by a single person. We recognise and hugely appreciate the stentorian voice you have raised through this report for the suffering humanity in Kashmir. Your personal visit could be a great boost to the suppressed people and serve to confirm with greater vigour what your office has already found out and is now widely known."
"Your visit could pressurise the Indian state to take affirmative action on the ground of Kashmir, put a stop to gross human rights violations at political, economic, civil, cultural and environmental level carried through unprecedented deployment of military forces and its own delegated bureaucrats which is a new norm of people's rule( democracy) in Indian Lexicon."
"It is the longstanding issue on UN Agenda as it is committed to its resolution to the satisfaction of the majority of people in the state. History has thrown this opportunity in your way to help in ending the most brutal and militarised occupation in the world history. Please take the opportunity and make it your moral passion to help us out of the brutal impasse in which we are caught. We hope you will accede to our request, accept our invitation and pay a visit to this blighted land for serving the cause of human rights and eternal human values, right to self determination being the centrepiece of dignified human existence."
However, according to KCSDS, office of the UN Secretary General after acknowledging the response has regretted his inability to visit Kashmir, KCSDS has still mailed another letter this morning to the Secretary General appealing him for taking up K issue with Indian authorities.
