The clashes in Kashmir over the last 2.5 months have cost the lives of 140 Muslims. The recent death of a 17-year-old struck in the chest by a gas bomb launched by the Indian police caused the people of Kashmir to pour onto the streets in protest. The Indian police are trying to use force to suppress these protests. Our hope is that the region will calm down very soon without further loss of life or property, and that a climate will be built in which Kashmiri Muslims can live in peace and comfort.

In order to properly understand the cause of the incidents taking place in Kashmir today, it will be enough to have a brief look at what has happened in Kashmir over the last 60 years. Before that, however, we must emphasize one very important matter: it is a fact that many innocent Muslims were martyred in Kashmir in the past, that many were crippled and that discriminatory and racist policies caused enormous suffering. And it is a known fact that Kashmiri Muslims are subjected to policies that violate the most basic freedoms and human rights. But what the people of Kashmir need to do in the face of all this is not to resort to violence and conflict. It is obvious that no results can be obtained through that path and that it will just lead to greater losses and suffering. The Muslims of Kashmir must fight against the real source of this oppression, ideologies and movements that encourage ruthlessness, selfishness and violence, and strive to neutralize them with knowledge and culture and the facts, and must try to eliminate irreligion, one of the main weapons of the system of the antichrist. What the people of Kashmir want is to live in well-being in their own lands, free of worries about their safety, in peace with people of other beliefs and races. The only way of attaining these desires is by the spread of the moral values revealed by Allah in the Qur’an and for people to act in the light of those values. Protests, a democratic right, must be held within legal bounds, and violence must never be used. It is most important for no methods to be employed that might cause the Indian police to point their weapons at innocent young Kashmiris. Because none of these are compatible with the moral values of the Qur’an.

What is compatible with the moral values of the Qur’an is to be aware of the system of the antichrist  by keeping to the path shown us by our Prophet (saas) in this most violent period of the End Times and to strive to be one of the followers of Hazrat Mahdi (as) who will neutralize the system of the antichrist . It is to be united, as Allah commands, and to exhibit powerful solidarity, using all the means at one’s disposal in order to wage an intellectual struggle against the true source of this corruption, Darwinism, materialism, atheism and irreligion.

The people of Kashmir, who are oppressed just for being Muslims

The Indian sub-continent was under British rule until the end of the Second World War. After the British left, Indian Muslims founded Pakistan. A large number of Muslims living within the borders of India then migrated to Pakistan. Yet although the region of Kashmir known as “Jammu and Kashmir” lying on the borders of India, Pakistan and China had a 67% Muslim population, by way of various tricks and intrigues on the part of Indian politicians, it remained under Indian rule. Ever since then, the 4 million or so Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir, according to 2001 counts, have been exposed to pressure and oppression from the Indian administration.

The Muslims of Kashmir sought to escape this oppression and attain independence, but they were subjected to terrible slaughter by Indian forces in 1947, 1965 and 1971 because of these demands. Tens of thousands of Kashmiri Muslims were martyred in these massacres and more than 4,000 women were tortured and raped.

In the 1990s, the Indian government stepped up the oppression; thousands of Muslims were detained for no reason and martyred by torture. Homes were looted and schools and newspapers providing Islamic education were closed down. The oppressive administration went still further, opening dam gates and flooding Jammu Kashmir and Pakistan, thus causing the deaths of thousands of people and terrible physical damage in the region as a whole. It is a known fact that to date some 80,000 Muslims have been martyred in Kashmir, that thousands have been maltreated in Indian prisons and that nothing has been heard from a further 10,000. There can be no doubt that the main cause of this persecution of the people of Kashmir, the acts of violence, the detentions for no reason, the torture and the economic embargoes is that the people of Kashmir are Muslims. They are trying to stop Muslims uniting and becoming stronger by the use of these repressive methods.
 

Many Western countries are silent in the face of the repression going on before their very eyes

Some Western countries, particularly worried that their interests in South Asia might suffer, take no interest in the repressive policies implemented against the Kashmiri people, and India is thus free to continue persecuting the Kashmiri Muslims. Even if international media organizations do from time to time raise the events in Kashmir, this repression that has been going on for years is portrayed as “a domestic uprising in a region belonging to India.” In short, the tortures, murders and inhuman practices are not properly described, the persecution is not openly condemned, and there is thus silence in the face of this persecution. The fact is, however, that all the Muslims of Kashmir want is to be free to live by their faith and to own a land in which they can raise their children in peace and security.

All Muslims must urgently discharge their responsibility to liberate their Muslim Kashmiri brothers from persecution and captivity

Allah says in several verses of the Qur’an that He has made believers one another’s guardians, and He commands them to support one another when they so need and to protect and watch over one another. He also forbids them to be fragmented and divided:

The men and women of the believers are friends of one another. They command what is right and forbid what is wrong, and perform the prayer [salat] and give the alms, and obey Allah and His Messenger. They are the people on whom Allah will have mercy. Allah is Almighty, All-Wise. (Surat at-Tawba, 71)

Hold fast to the rope of Allah all together, and do not separate... (Surah Al ‘Imran, 103)

Allah refers to believers supporting one another against repression as follows:

...those who respond to their Lord and perform the prayer [salat], and manage their affairs by mutual consultation and give of what We have provided for them; those who, when they are wronged, defend themselves. (Surat ash-Shura, 38-39)

It is today time for all Muslims to obey these commands of Allah’s. It must not be forgotten that the whole Islamic world is responsible for every Muslim who is tortured, martyred or crippled just for being a Muslim. By Allah’s leave, the liberation of these people will come about by the hand of the Islamic world as it unites under the spiritual leadership of Hazrat Mahdi (as) in the End Times in which we are living. Therefore, believers all over the world must heed the voice of their conscience and everyone must accept that they have a duty in this regard and must act without delay in order to free their persecuted brothers. And there is no doubt that one of the main ways of achieving this is Islamic Union, for the Islamic world to be united. Injustices, oppression, conflict, violence and disorder will come to an end only with Islamic Union. Only when there is Islamic Union will Muslims be free from ruthless genocide and living in fear in their own lands.