The sudden, inexplicable return of former president Pervez Musharraf on March 24 to contest elections in Pakistan next month, particularly the manner in which his nomination papers were cleared only for Chitral Parliamentary Constituency which is officially part of India, raises suspicions that this may be part of a conspiracy to formally annex the territories grabbed in the 1947-48 war. The shameful silence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on the matter reinforces fears that the pro-West tilt of the ruling UPA coalition may compromise the national interest.
To recapitulate, on April 7, 2013, General Musharraf’s nominations papers for the Karachi Parliamentary Constituency (number 250) were rejected by the election authorities after Jamaat-e-Islami leader Niyamatullah Khan objected to his candidature on grounds that he had twice violated the Constitution and placed judges under house arrest after declaring an emergency in 2007. Thereafter, the Returning Officer rejected Musharraf’s papers for his actions against members of the judiciary. Previously Musharraf’s papers for Kasur, Punjab, were rejected on April 5, 2013, on grounds of a signature mismatch. His papers for Islamabad constituency were also challenged.
Going by the logic of the Karachi rejection, the Election Commission should have ordered the rejection of the General’s nominations papers from all four constituencies for which he had filed. Instead, his papers for Chitral in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province were accepted. There is a view that he is popular in this region on account of some developmental works undertaken during his tenure in office.
This could be part of a larger plan by Pakistan to annex and absorb the one-third area of the former kingdom of Jammu & Kashmir that it illegally occupied in 1947 and held on to despite the United Nations’ resolution of 1948 which asked it to vacate all seized territories.
The J&K based National Panthers Party feels that Pervez Musharraf was brought back from exile under Army pressure in order to help legitimize Pakistan’s occupation over the strategically vital territories of Gilgit-Baltistan.
Gilgit region comprising Chitral, Hunza, Astore, Dardistan etc. became part of Jammu & Kashmir by 1857 under the command of General Hoshiara Singh and General Baaz Singh. The then ruler of Chitral, Jagirdar Amman-ul-Mulk, surrendered to the Dogra Army; a formal treaty was submitted to the Maharaja in 1877, and thereafter Chitral remained an integral part of J&K.
However, the British Raj always coveted Gilgit-Baltistan, particularly in view of Russian advances in Central Asia. They launched a military campaign between 1889 and 1895 and brought the region under the command of British officers, though it officially remained a feudatory of the Maharaja.
Supreme Court senior advocate Bhim Singh points out that after Maharaja Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession on October 26, 1947, Chitral became part of the territory of the Indian Union. In 1969, however, General Yahya Khan illegally declared Chitral as a district of Pakistan, and the then Indian Government maintained a stony silence.
Now, another General is preparing to represent Chitral, a part of the Indian State of Jammu & Kashmir, in the Pakistan Parliament, and the Indian Government is once again a mute spectator.
Islamabad’s move violates the UN Resolution of August 13, 1948, wherein Pakistan was directed to vacate all occupied territories of J&K. It also contradicts Islamabad’s position in various international forums that J&K is a “disputed” territory.
What seems to be happening is an execution of the dangerous designs of ISI and its Western patrons to implement the Dixon Plan to carve out an Islamic Republic of Kashmir as per recent revelations by Wikileaks. This fits in with NATO designs to redesign the boundaries of third world countries as per Western geo-strategic interests.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s recent insistence that the State is not an integral part of India must be viewed as part of a sinister plot to refashion the international boundaries in our region, and compensate Pakistan for a possible fallout in neighbouring Afghanistan and its own province of Balochistan.
NitiCentral.com, 10 April 2013
http://www.niticentral.com/2013/04/10/the-general-invades-again-64222.html
