Pakistan is all set to merge the Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) with the mainland, making it as its fifth province. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is holding a high-level meeting on January 14 to discuss future of Gilgit-Baltistan.
Behind the veil of bonhomie, Pakistan is quietly annexing parts of its occupied Kashmir into the mainland sparking fears of its nefarious designs.
Pakistan is all set to merge the Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) with the mainland, making it as its fifth province. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is holding a high-level meeting on January 14 to discuss future of Gilgit-Baltistan.
Previously known as Northern Areas, the GB had been part of erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. However in 1970, GB was made a separate administrative entity, the arrangement which remained until 2009 when it was made a self-governing territory of Pakistan with separate legislative assembly and chief minister.
However, Pakistan has been working on evolving consensus to merge it with the mainland sparking fears of formal division of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK). The issue has sparked anger in PoK as well as in Jammu and Kashmir with pro-independence JKLF chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik writing a letter to Sharif cautioning him against merging the GB with Pakistan.
Even PoK Prime Minister Abdul Majeed has warned the Sharif government against any attempt to make Gilgit-Baltistan fifth province of Pakistan.
"Apprehensions have been raised in various quarters that your government may reach a consensus to merge Gilgit Baltistan with Pakistan. This will have implications on the dispute over Jammu and Kashmir. If Pakistan imposes its sovereign writ over Gilgit Baltistan, India will then have a political and moral right to integrate Kashmir with it," Malik wrote to Sharif.
Elaborating, he said from 1947 people of Jammu Kashmir have been striving for their birth right and lakhs of people have given lives for this struggle.
"If your government incorporates Gilgit Baltistan into Pakistan, and if as a consequence, India consolidates its hold in Kashmir, this would amount to bartering of people's aspirations. Kashmir is not about territory. It is about rights of people. Bartering these rights for land means killing the aspirations of the people," he said.
Referring to China-Pakistan Corridor (CPEC), Malik said economic development is good but they have no moral right to make policy that will adversely affect the future of millions of Kashmiris.
"Bartering away territory for economic growth does not make you statesman. It is opportunity for you to become a statesman by not bowing to economic pressures. Become a statesman and resist short term temptations," he said.
BJP too has expressed serious concern over the reported move of merging GB with Pakistan. "It is unnatural and illegal. Pakistan fears a mass rebellion and that is why they are dividing Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir. India will not tolerate it. People at centre would be discussing this issue," Vibodh Gupta, BJP state vice-president, told dna.
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