Indo American Kashmir Forum (IAKF) welcomes Modi govt's decision to scrap Article 370, reorgnise J&K
New Delhi, Aug 6 (IBNS): The Indo-American Kashmir Forum or IAKF, which was formed in 1991 to represent the socio-political voice of the Kashmiri Pandit community residing in the United States, has welcomed the Narendra Modi government's historic decision of doing away with Article 370 and the statehood of Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcating it into two Union Territories, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
IAKF said in a statement, "This change is an extremely welcome development for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the status quo in the State, under the Article 370 dispensation, had failed utterly in bringing peace, security, development and human rights to its people, especially religious minorities in the Kashmir valley."
"Second, the State had fallen into a rut of dynastic rule led by a few prominent Muslim families that had looted the State of its wealth which led the Transparency International (TI) to label the State as the most corrupt in India. In fact, a classified cable (leaked by Wikileaks) from Ambassador David Mulford to the US State Department in February 2006 called Kashmir a “money game” and stated that, 'Kashmir Politics is as filthy as Dal Lake'.
"But the biggest reason why our organization, and our sister organizations, the Indo-European Kashmir Forum (IEKF) based in London and Geneva, and the Indo-Canadian Kashmir Forum (ICKF) based in Ottawa, support the decision by the Government of India is because finally Kashmiri minorities, particularly the Kashmiri Pandits, will receive justice and be able to reclaim their ancestral lands from where they were driven out in 1989-1990. The ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus from Kashmir valley is a disgraceful chapter in the history of free India, and it happened," the statement read.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah told Parliament on Monday that the government would scrap Article 370, the constitutional provision that allowed Jammu and Kashmir to make its own laws.
In a landmark day which witnessed day-long debates, the Rajya Sabha on Monday passed the Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation Bill, 2019 which proposes to bifurcate the terror-hit northern state into two Union Terriroties - J&K, a Union Territory with Legislative Assembly, and Ladakh, a UT without Legislative Assembly.
As several opposition parties walked away, the majority mark of the Upper House was brought down while some non-BJP lawmakers also supported the government's move.
Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party, Naveen Patnaik's Biju Janata Dal, Jagan Reddy's YSR Congress, N Chandrababu Naidu's Telugu Desam Party and quite surprisingly Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party supported the government on the bill.
About 125 lawmakers voted for the bill and 61 against it in the 242-member Rajya Sabha.
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