FROM the correspondence between Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, and his army chief to the refiling of the case against Kashmiri leader Yasin Malik seeking death penalty against him, India has never been sincere to a just settlement of issues related to the occupied Jammu and Kashmir. Every step of the way, all it has done is to buy some time so that it may come down hard when the time is right.

India has cheated us so many times, but we have never learnt a lesson. As revealed by British daily The Guardian, Nehru had chosen to sign a ceasefire on the advice of his army chief, who said the Indian army was not strong enough at the time to continue the war. As such, India bought time to consolidate its position.

India played the game again by persuading the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Yasin Malik to announce a ceasefire back in the mid-1990s on the condition of a political settlement through dialogue. Malik stood by his word, but India did not, and has not. The current regime rearrested him just before making constitutional changes regarding the status of occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

New Delhi has now refiled a case against Malik dating back 34 years, seeking death penalty. I wonder if anything would be done to protect him, or we will keep waiting until he is hanged and buried beside Maqbool Butt and Afzal Guru in Tihar jail.

Quayyum Raja
Khuiratta, AJK

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2023