LONDON (PNI) India snatching the basic right of education from youth in Indian Illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIoJK) continues to trigger concern in important world capitals.
In latest communication, a British lawmaker has shot a letter to Lord Tariq Ahmad, the UK Minister for South Asia, North Africa, the UN and the Commonwealth at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), urging his office to immediately intervene in IIoJK so that the Kashmiri youth are able to resume their education.
Afzal Khan, the UK parliament member, explains in the letter that the Indian military regime in IIoJK has “closed hundreds of schools which will deprive young Kashmiris from basic education.”
Welcoming the UK government’s commitment to upholding right to education, Khan said India in recent past has closed some 300 schools run by Falah-e-Aam (Welfare for All) Trust in IIoJK impacting over 60,000 students and taff who were employed by the trust.
“Can you raise this with your Indian counterpart o ensure Kashmiris have access to quality education” Khan asked Minister Ahmad.
In June, the fascist Indian military regime in IIoJK ordered closure of all FAT schools where over 60,000 students from modest background attained quality education. Besides, over 4,000 people are directly or indirectly are employed by the FAT schools.
Earlier, another British lawmaker Jess Phillips had said education is a basic right of every human being and “the war (in IIoJK) that has anything to do with them… it is not their doing.”
“Children of Kashmir must be educated. We will be looking to the UK government to ensure they are intervening so that children of Kashmir are educated,” Phillips had told members of Tehreek-e-Kashmir UK in London.
To give quality education to Kashmiri youth from modest background, the FAT schools in IIoJK were registered with puppet administration in 1972 and were later opened across the IIoJK of UN-designated disputed territory.
According to Article 4 of the FAT constitution, it as a non-political body dedicated to education and service to mankind.
The FAT constitution makes it clear that the opening of educational institutions is mandated to educate students from all shades of society without any discrimination.
MP Afzal Khan in the same letter also urged Minister Ahmad to raise issue of illegal detention of human rights activist Ahsan Untoo who has been arbitrarily detained by Indian occupying forces since January this year.
“This is a part of pattern,” Khan said about the Untoo’s arrest linking it with abduction and illegal arrest of Kashmiris resistance leader Muhammad Yasin Malik and illegal detention of Kashmiri human rights defender Khurram Parvez.
“The significance of the situation (in IIoJK) not only has severe implications for the people of Jammu and Kashmir, who have lived in a state of perpetual violence for the past 30 years, but also the peace of the wider region,” the British lawmaker told Minister Ahmad.
He said: “It is in everyone’s interest to facilitate a peace process in Kashmir.”
It is important to note that in a separate communication to outgoing UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a group of four British lawmakers has proposed a UK government-backed Human rights and diplomats forum on the UN-designated disputed territory of the IIoJK.
It has also urged the British government to press India to grant unhindered access to international human rights groups to IIoJK.
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