Pakistan’s consul general Syed Zahid Raza to host Kashmir Solidarity Day event in Glasgow

Timed to mark Kashmir Solidarity Day, the event will be hosted by Syed Zahid Raza, Pakistan’s consul general for Scotland and Northern Ireland, at his Glasgow office, a former mansion house guarded by gold-tipped gates.

The diplomat says there is a “commonality” between Scotland and Kashmir as both “want to have more freedom”. But the political circumstances facing the two nations are very different, despite secessionist movements in each.

While the battle for Scotland’s future is played out through the ballot box and across social media, with Yes and No lines clearly drawn between political parties, the Kashmir question dates back to partition. Both India and Pakistan rule over parts of the territory and the dispute over control has lead to two of the three wars fought between the neighbouring nations.

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Pakistan denies supporting armed groups in the Indian-held states and accuses Indian authorities of human rights offences. India says it is the victim of propaganda aimed at undermining its legitimacy.

The Himalayan region is divided by a line of control, but this is often breached by separatist militants, and the Indian side to the south, Jammu and Kashmir, is around three times as populous as the northern part that’s in Pakistan’s hands.

Late last month Indian forces said they had killed five suspected rebels, including a Pakistani national and a senior commander of the Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) armed group.

Those killed in such circumstances are not returned to families but buried by police in remote graveyards without notice under what authorities say are measures to avoid protests or large funeral processions.

Amnesty International, which closed its Indian offices in 2020 after what it called a “two-year campaign of harassment”, has criticised what is described as a clampdown on human rights in the Delhi-controlled Jammu and Kashmir region since its special autonomous status was revoked by Narendra Modhi’s government in summer 2019.

That decision saw the region cut into two union territories, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, with the valley placed under lockdown and mainstream political leaders taken into custody.

Amnesty has also highlighted the “reluctance” of the UK, America, EU and other partner countries to “publicly denounce Indian government abuses, let alone take measures to address them” amidst claims of widespread abuses by security forces.

Last last month, London legal firm Stoke White said it has passed extensive evidence to the Metropolitan Police’s War Crimes Unit proving Indian forces were responsible for the torture, abduction and killing of activists, journalists and civilians in the region.

The Indian government denies alleged rights violations and says it is the victim of separatist propaganda designed to denigrate its forces in the region.

Meanwhile, a plebiscite plan laid down in a UN resolution in 1949 remains unfulfilled.

Labour MSP Pauline McNeill and SNP councillor Danish Ashraf are amongst those expected to speak alongside Dr Irfan Jahangir, an Indian Kashmiri, at today’s event in Glasgow, where activists will also hold a street-level demonstration.

Last night Raza, who took up the post last October, said it is “difficulty to make people understand the gravity of the situation” but “we are the next-door neighbour to this conflict”.

He believes the situation “strikes a chord” with the people of Scotland, which, unlike the rest of the UK, is home to more people of Pakistani than Indian extraction.

Raza says there is “harmony” between these communities in Scotland, as well as with Kashmiris living here.

Raza said: “Scotland has their own ideas on their own independence. They want to be listened to. They want to have more freedom towards their own country.

“That’s a commonality between the Kashmir cause and the Scottish move for independence.

“The people think that any movement to control people’s right to choose which country they should be part of is a basic human right, the advance of democracy.”

The SNP adopted a motion of solidarity with Kashmir’s right to self-determination in 2019.

Ashraf, whose brother Junaid Ashraf proposed that motion, says Kashmir Solidarity Day is firstly about human rights.

The North Lanarkshire politician stated: “Amnesty International, as well as Human Rights Watch and many other global human rights organisations, have continued to voice their concerns over the treatment of the Kashmiri people.

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“On this day, we as concerned global citizens voice our apprehensions together to call for humanity and an end to the military rule which has quickly made Kashmir one of the most militarised regions in the world.”

As the British empire receded, the new borders of partition were drawn up using out-of-date maps and materials and split not only Kashmir but also Punjab and Bengal.

There had been bloody violence and massacres beforehand and estimates suggest that anywhere from 200,000 to two million people were killed afterwards.

Around 15 million people are understood to have been displaced as Muslims moved into the land that was now Pakistan and Hindus and Sikhs went to India.