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Pakistan indulged in ethnic cleansing of local Kashmiris in 1947: CRPF official

Just Earth News | @indiablooms | 22 Oct 2020

Pakistan indulged in ethnic cleansing of local Kashmiris in 1947: CRPF official

Suneem Khan, a senior medico serving with Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) Srinagar, has alleged that Islamabad was involved in ethnic cleansing in Kashmir during the Pakistani invasion of October 1947. 

He claimed that Pakistan's obsession with Kashmir has weakened its economy.

Recalling the book 'Raiders in Kashmir' by a former Pakistan Army General, he was quoted as saying by ANI that it presents the real narrative "otherwise unheard of earlier."

"The author, a retired Maj Gen of Pakistan Army, Akbar Khan, is himself admitting the role of Pakistan in stoking the conflict in Kashmir. He minces no words to audaciously convey that Pakistan played the role of an aggressor and even justifies to his readers the pressing compulsions to adopt that military stance," he wrote. 

He further wrote that Akbar "no longer kept it a secret" that at the beginning of September 1947 he was asked to prepare a plan as to how to take over Kashmir.

"Serving at the time as director of weapons and equipment (DW&E) in GHQ, he was aware of the quantum of weapons and ammunition while some of it was brought from Italy after obtaining the concurrence of political leadership owing to the financial implications. These weapons were secretly diverted to the people of Kashmir," he said. 

Black Day is observed to mark the sacrifices made by lakhs of Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims to defeat the invasion of the erstwhile Princely State by the Pakistan Army in 1947, often touted as the tribal invasion.

The day is being observed at a time when Jammu and Kashmir, now a union territory, is observing the first anniversary of the scrapping of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Article had given special status to the former state which was turned into a union territory by New Delhi following its bifurcation