'Ploy to Project Fake Normalcy': Pakistan 'Rejects' PM Modi's Kashmir Visit

Pakistan 'salutes' spirit of Kashmiris who remain strong in the face of 'India's oppressive occupation,' it said.

PM Narendra Modi in Jammu & Kashmir

(Photo: PTI)

Pakistan on Sunday, 24 April, shared an official statement expressing its objection to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Jammu & Kashmir visit, calling it "yet another ploy to project fake 'normalcy' in the occupied territory."

An official statement shared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Islamabad, said, "Pakistan rejects Indian Prime Minister’s staged visit to Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) on 24 April 2022."

"Since 5 August 2019, the international community has witnessed many such desperate attempts by India to divert attention from the actual underlying issues in IIOJK including Indian state-sponsored terrorism as well as widespread violations of human rights and international humanitarian law," the statement asserted.

PM Modi had inaugurated projects worth Rs 20,000 crore related to connectivity and electricity in Jammu & Kashmir on Sunday. He had also proposed the construction of two hydroelectric projects – an 850-megawatt facility built on the Chenab river in Kishtwar and Kwar, and a 540-megawatt facility, which will be constructed on the same river.

Pakistan called the aforementioned projects a 'direct contravention' of the Indus Waters Treaty:

"Pakistan also strongly condemns the laying of foundation stones for the construction of the Rattle and Kwar Hydroelectric Projects (HEP) on Chenab River in IIOJK. The construction of Rattle hydroelectric plant, as designed by India, has been disputed by Pakistan, and for Kwar Hydroelectric Plant India has so far not fulfilled its Treaty obligation of sharing information with Pakistan."

"Pakistan views such laying of foundation stones of the two projects by the Indian Prime Minister as direct contravention of the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 and calls upon India to fulfill its obligations under the IWT and refrain from taking any such steps which are detrimental to the IWT framework," the Foreign Office stated.

Kashmiris Were Observing 'Black Day': Pakistan Spokesperson

"The people of IIOJK were observing a 'black day' as an expression of their rejection of India’s mischief and illegal policies," the Pakistan spokesperson wrote on Modi's visit to Kashmir.

Pakistan noted that it saluted the spirit of Kashmiris who remained strong in the face of "India's oppressive occupation", offering 'support' to the civilians' struggle for the right to self-determination.

"It is a mockery that the BJP-RSS regime, which is relentlessly pursuing its avowed ideological mission to politically and economically disempower and dispossess the Kashmiris, seeks to project itself before the world as a champion of development in the occupied territory," the statement read.

It is the prime minister's first official visit to Jammu and Kashmir after the central government scrapped Article 370 in August 2019.