India needs change in approach in dealing PoK: Experts

 

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MAYANK SINGH | New Delhi, February 23, 2012

 

The experts on Pakistan blame India of handling the issue related to the territory which is under Pakistan occupation with apologetic approach and lack of understanding of the strategic importance of the areas like Gilgit and Baltistan.

Captain Alok Bansal, Security analyst and expert on the PoK and Gilgit and Baltistan says, “The strategic importance of Jammu and Kashmir emanates from the Gilgit and Baltistan, not the Valley and Jammu either.”
 

Professor Siddiq Wahid, historian and former Vice-Chancellor, Kashmir Islamic University, Srinagar says, “It took us 60 years to know that there is Gilgit-Baltistan too.” It not only highlights the lack of priority given to the issue of the Indian territory under Pakistan occupation. Most of the experts believe that the discussions primarily talk of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and this has never been on the status of the Gilgit and Baltistan which is around six times the area of Azad Kashmir which is 13, 297 sq. km.

Mumtaz Khan, Executive director of International Center for Peace and Democracy, Canada points to a different kind of game plan. He says, “Democracy in Azad Jammu and Kashmir is only for the parties which favour the Pakistani ideology of exploiting these areas of J&K. India has adopted an apologetic attitude.” Mumtaz belongs to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and is currently based in Canada.

Another issue which has come to the fore in the recent times is the conspicuous presence of Chinese troops in these areas and according to Mumtaz Khan it is all being done under a long term plan. He says, “Pakistan is getting unstable and if this leads to disintegration India will be the inheritor of these areas and to keep any such possibility at bay Pakistanis are negotiating and trying to increase the Chinese presence in these areas.

Senge Sering, President, Institute for Gilgit and Baltistan Studies, Washington DC says, “Pakistan has adopted policies to change the demography and for this it has passed an ordinance that anybody from other parts of Pakistan who agrees to take up job in Gilgit and Baltistan will be paid double the normal salary.” Senge Sering added, “Political representatives from Gilgit Baltistan should be given the chance to represent themselves in the Kashmir Assembly where more than 22 seats lie vacant and reserved for the representatives of the people of Gilgit Baltistan.”

The area of J&K under the control of Pakistan sizes up to approximately 85,793 sq km and was further divided in 1970 into two separate administrative divisions, namely, Mirpur-Muzaffarabad (commonly referred to as Azad Jammu and Kashmir, AJK, by Pakistan) and the Federally Administered Gilgit-Baltistan. It was way back in 1963 that Pakistan had illegally ceded a huge portion of territory of the Shaksgam Valley of PoK, which is 5,180 sq km to China in a border agreement of 1963. Gilgit and Baltistan covers an area of 72,971 Sq. km. Gilgit Baltistan is rich in Uranium, Gold and Copper.

Pakistan is indulging in demographic engineering says, Captain Alok Bansal and as a result large scale influx of people belonging to FATA, North West Frontier Province, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is taking place and the business is being occupied by them.

According to these experts, there is a need of increasing the people-to-people contact. Professor Siddiq Wahid says, “Borders should be opened and trade be promoted. This will let the people from that side come and see the kind of life people have on this side, in India.

Also, these experts believe that India needs to put its case emphatically on Gilgit and Baltistan before the world community and diplomats. Gilgit and Baltistan has borders with Afghanistan in its northwest, Xinjiang Province of China to its east and northeast, Azad Jammu and Kashmir under control of Pakistan to the southwest, and a 480 km-long Line of Control (LoC) running alongside India in the southeast. Thus one can easily realize the strategic importance of the Gilgit and Baltistan with it connecting parts of West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia and China.

 http://www.thesundayindian.com/en/story/india-needs-change-in-approach-in-dealing-pok-experts/254/30409/