Think about you must stay below situations the place there isn’t any electrical energy for days and so as to hold your loved ones heat throughout thewinter seasonyou are compelled to burn the wood furnishings that you just inherited as your wifes dowry. Think about there isn’t any operating water for months and also you and your ladies and kids should fetch water from the polluted river day in and time out.

Think about you aren’t being paid your wage and the native store keeper refuses to present you meals necessities on credit score until you clear the present debt. Think about you may have been given the sack with out prior discover and the varsity your kids go to refuses to allow them to sit within the class room resulting from ono-payment of tuition charges.

Think about you might be an outdated pensioner and the submit workplace refuses to pay your pension resulting from lack of funds. Think about you ship you daughter to a school to be educated and her personal professor kidnaps after which rapes her. Think about scores of your feminine college students are forcefully despatched to go to Pakistan navy private stationed on the Line of Management fulfill their lust for male gaze.

Think about you’re a college instructor and you must observe sit-ins at authorities places of work and beg for a pay rise from those that you as soon as taught in your class room. And picture you might be unable to cost your cell phone since you stay in a metropolis doesn’t have energy and electrical energy for 22 hours’ day. That is what my individuals are compelled to stay like for the previous seven many years.

In Pakistan occupied Jammu Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan (PoJK and PoGB) individuals are affected by malnutrition, illness, psychological well being points, unemployment, drug abuse, sexual exploitation and harassment that leaves them with little alternative however to finish their lives.

From 2018 to 2022, at the least 219 suicides have been reported in PoGB alone. Some 1.5 million younger and center aged males from PoJK out of a complete inhabitants of 4 million have been compelled emigrate to the Center Japanese nations, Europe and North America to carry out underpaid and unskilled or low expert jobs for numerous corporations.

The roles my folks carry out within the above point out elements of the world embrace fork lifting, driving taxis, working as cooks and kitchen porters, waiters, safety guards and as rest room cleaners at airports and buying malls.

Our land is wealthy in pure sources together with minerals, treasured stones, forests and contemporary water rivers which if correctly managed might generate a mixed income of greater than $10 billion a yr. This sum of money can simply pay free of charge training and electrical energy, hospitals, pensions in addition to in creating probably the most fashionable industrial, and social infrastructure that would match any metropolis that belongs to todays superior capitalist world. The explanation my individuals are poor is as a result of our lands have been below the unlawful occupation of the state and military of Pakistan.

On October 22, 1947 Pakistan military attacked our state of Jammu and Kashmir and commenced massacring non-Muslim non secular minorities within the title of ‘purifying’ Jammu and Kashmir of infidels. This resulted within the worst form of genocide of the Hindu and Sikh communities because the Holocaust. Greater than 100,000 Hindus and Sikhs had been beheaded, shot or hacked to loss of life between 22 October 1947 and March 1948.

It was on October 26, 1947 that our king, Maharaja Hari Singh, signed an instrument of accession with the Republic of India opening approach for Indian troops to land within the capital metropolis of Srinagar and push again the invaders.

Nevertheless, a ceasefire brokered by the then United Nation Safety Council introduced the warfare to an abrupt halt leaving the unliberated territories of Jammu Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan within the fingers of the Pakistan authorities. To at the present time, my folks await the time they’d be liberated and let loose from the unlawful occupation of Pakistan.

In response to the instrument of Accession, signed between Maharaja Hari Singh and Lord Mount Batten, territories which might be below the occupation of Pakistan are additionally a part of that settlement thus making each territories (PoJK/GB) and integral a part of India.

Due to this fact, I and my individuals are Indian residents by default. And above all Narendra Modi can also be our Prime Minister. Is it not time that our prime minister ought to unwaveringly elevate the difficulty of our subjugation and struggling with the world neighborhood and assist to set us free and rejoin our motherland?

(The creator is a human rights activist from Mirpur in PoJK. He presently lives in exile within the UK. The views expressed are private)