By TSAT report

SRINAGAR, Kashmir (TSAT) - The Indian government has increased the representation of Hindus in the assembly of the Muslim majority region of Jammu and Kashmir, another attempt to also convert the only Muslim region into a Hindu majority. 

In its reports, the delimitation commission constituted by the Indian government, increased the Hindu seats in the Kashmir assembly from 37 to 43 while Muslim seats remain at 47. 

Kashmir is a Muslim majority region with over 68% population out of over 12.5 million while Hindus are only 28% in the region. 

Since August 2019, when New Delhi scrapped the autonomous status of the disputed valley, the Indian government has begun to shift Hindus from other parts of the country and converted the region into a Hindu majority. 

Pakistan on late Thursday summoned the Indian senior diplomat and rejected the New Delhi so-called ‘Delimitation Commission’ for the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK)

According to the Foreign Ministry statement, they summoned the Indian Charge d’Affaires (Cd’A) and handed over a demarche conveying the Government of Pakistan’s categorical rejection of the report of the so-called ‘Delimitation Commission’ which according to Pakistan was aimed at disenfranchising and disempowering the Muslim majority population of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).

“The Indian side was conveyed that this entire exercise was farcical and had already been rejected by the cross-section of political parties in IIOJK. Through this effort, India only wanted to lend ‘legitimacy’ to its illegal actions of August 5, 2019,” said the ministry. 

Pakistan accused India to reduce the Muslim representation under the garb of so-called delimitation in the re-designated constituencies,

“This shattered the rationale pushed by the Indian Government that the ‘delimitation effort’ was aimed to ‘empower’ the local population. However, in reality, the new electoral boundaries would further disempower, marginalize and divide the people of the occupied territory. It would only pave the way for installing yet another puppet regime backed by the BJP-RSS combine.”

Islamabad told the New Delhi envoy that the Jammu and Kashmir dispute was an internationally recognized dispute and a long-standing item on the agenda of the UN Security Council and any illegal, unilateral and mischievous attempt by India to allow disproportionately higher electoral representation to the Hindu population to the detriment of the Muslim population, is a mockery of all norms of democracy, morality and India’s obligations under the UN Security Council Resolutions and international law.

“It was also stressed that the Indian Government must refrain from bringing about any illegal demographic changes in the occupied territory, stop forthwith its oppression in the IIOJK, and let the Kashmiri people determine their own future through a free and fair plebiscite under the UN auspices as enshrined in the relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions,” said the ministry.