There is a strong pro-India, anti-Pakistan feeling in the Pakistan-occupied areas of Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan; V K Shashikumar fails to understand why Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is unresponsive to letters from leaders of the freedom movements in these areas asking for India's assistance

A pro-India freedom movement in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) has requested Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to invite candidates from PoK to participate in the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Legislative Assembly elections. The J&K Constitution has 25 seats reserved for candidates from PoK. Chairperson of the Balawaristan National Front (BNF) Abdul Hamid Khan had put forward this unique request to Vajpayee in a letter dated December 18, 2000 . BNF is a pro-India freedom movement in Pakistan-occupied Gilgit and Baltistan (POGB).

"We request your honour to invite the candidates of Balawaristan and PoK to fill the 25 vacant seats in the J&K Assembly, which have been laying vacant for the last many years. So the elected representative of Balawaristan and PoK would represent their areas, and reveal the oppression of Pakistan before the civilised world (on the) one side, (and) on other, India will gain the favour of the people of these areas automatically. And I also appeal to your government to deliver orders to the concerned authority to ensure the representation of Balawaristan (POGB) and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir in the J&K Assembly by following the Indian and J&K constitutions," he says.

The Government of India has failed to highlight the pro-India movement in POGB. Ironically, there is a huge wellspring of support for India in Pakistan's Northern Areas. The people living in POGB have named the Northern Areas region "Balawaristan". "We have some contact with the Indian diplomatic mission in Pakistan, and they listen to us patiently," says Abdul Hamid Khan. But the BNF leaders want India to take a more pro-active approach, create awareness in the international community about the "anti-people activities of Pakistan in Balawaristan". In his letter, Khan requested Vajpayee to "include (the status) of Gilgit-Baltistan in the J&K dialogue".

The Indian government, however, has been mysteriously silent about the plight of the two million people living in the 44,800 sq km Gilgit-Baltistan area. Why is the government hesitant, when on February 22, 1994, the Parliament passed a historic resolution calling on Pakistan to vacate the territories occupied by it in the J&K? The 1994 resolution "expresses regret and concern at the pitiable conditions and violations of human rights and denial of democratic freedoms of the people in those areas of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, which are under the illegal occupation of Pakistan…Pakistan must vacate the areas of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, which they have occupied through aggression".

rest of the article is at http://www.tehelka.com/channels/currentaffairs/2001/nov/27/ca112701balwar.htm

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