Externail Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar (ANI)India has registered a strong protest to Pakistan after the latter’s Supreme Court allowed conducting general election in Gilgit-Baltistan region of the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK), Economic Times said in a report by PTI.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said Pakistan has been communicated that the entire Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh including Gilgit and Baltistan are an integral part of the Republic of India. The MEA added that Pakistan is in illegal occupation of these areas and it should vacate them immediately, the report said.
India’s reaction has come in the wake of a recent order by the Pakistan Supreme Court that permitted the amendment to the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan Order of 2018 to exercise the general elections in the region.
“India demarched senior Pakistan diplomat and lodged a strong protest to Pakistan against Supreme Court of Pakistan order on the so-called 'Gilgit-Baltistan',” the MEA said in a statement.
“It was clearly conveyed that the entire Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including the areas of Gilgit and Baltistan, are an integral part of India by virtue of its fully legal and irrevocable accession,” it said.
The MEA said the administration of Pakistan or its judiciary had no locus standi on territories “illegally and forcibly” occupied by it, while also accusing it of “grave human rights violations, exploitation and denial of freedom” to the people residing in these areas for the past seven decades.
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