Pakistan has transformed Kashmir into the world’s longest-running terror-export project, according to a report published on Saturday, which argues that Western nations’ portrayal of the 1947 events in Jammu and Kashmir as a mere “territorial conflict” has allowed Islamabad to act with impunity for decades.
Swedish human rights defender Michael Arizanti, writing for the UK-based publication The Milli Chronicle, asserted that on 22 October 1947, Pakistan launched Operation Gulmarg, a state-orchestrated invasion disguised as a tribal uprising. Armed Pashtun militias, supported by regular Pakistan Army units, entered Kashmir “with one mandate: terror,” he wrote, describing the ensuing atrocities, mass killings, and sexual violence, as acts that would today meet the legal definition of crimes against humanity.
Rejecting efforts to “sanitise history for geopolitical comfort,” Arizanti argued that the 1947 events were not a dispute but an outright invasion fuelled by Pakistan’s militarised ideology, one that viewed Hindu and Sikh communities not as citizens deserving protection, but as obstacles to a territorial conquest.
Even after seventy-eight years, Arizanti contends, the structural mindset that drove that aggression remains unchanged. “Pakistan’s military establishment still treats territory as a trophy, civilians as expendable, and jihad as a policy tool,” he wrote. “The same mentality that sent tribal Lashkars to slaughter Kashmiris in Baramulla and Mirpur later produced Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, and every other so-called proxy used to destabilise the region.”
He described Pakistan’s long-standing approach as a recurring pattern: “Export terror. Deny responsibility. Perform victimhood. Silence dissent. Pakistan perfected this sequence in October 1947 and has repeated it in every decade since.”
Highlighting the transformation within Jammu and Kashmir after the 2019 constitutional reforms, which fully integrated the region into India, Arizanti noted a sharp rise in investment, infrastructure, and tourism, now exceeding pre-militancy levels. New universities, hospitals, and road networks have emerged, and local elections have recorded the highest voter turnouts in decades.
In stark contrast, he said, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) suffers from economic stagnation, rolling power cuts, repression of activists, and a per capita income less than half that of Indian-administered areas. He cited reports that in 2024, Pakistani troops opened fire on civilians protesting against food shortages and electricity theft by local authorities.
Arizanti further observed that Pakistan’s decades-long support for the Afghan Taliban stemmed not from religious solidarity but from strategic paranoia. “Even today, Islamabad accuses Kabul of harbouring terrorists while ignoring that the Taliban leadership lived comfortably in Quetta and Peshawar for years under Pakistan’s protection,” he wrote, calling it a “toxic codependence” designed to keep Afghanistan unstable so that Pakistan can dictate the terms of peace.
(With inputs from IANS)
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: ZEE News
