05021959  Letter dated 5 February 1959 from the representative of Pakistan Agha Shahi to the President of the Security Council

05021959  Letter dated 5 February 1959 from the representative of Pakistan Agha Shahi to the President of the Security Council

Under instructions from my Government, I have the honour to request you kindly to refer to my letter, dated 30 December 1958, which was issued as document S/4143 of 30 December 1958.

I deeply regret to report that the apprehension expressed by this delegation about the inquiry into the cause of the mysterious death of Mr Ghulam Mohammad Shaikh has been justified by later events. It seems to be conducted by the Indian-sponsored regime in Kashmir, through that a mock inquiry was conducted by a subservient magistrate, and the convenient finding has been obtained that Mr. Shaikh died of natural causes. The sombreness and gravity of this event have been further deepened by the news that has since been received in Pakistan that Mr. Mohammad Abdullah Majaz, Office Secretary of the Kashmir Political Conference, also died last month in Indian-held Kashmir. Mr. Majaz had been recently released from jail. It reported that at the time of his release his health was in a precarious state evidently caused by the torments of political imprisonment in Indian occupied Kashmir.

Other reports received in Pakistan reveal that the physical condition of prominent leaders in the Jammu and Kashmir State, put behind the bars by the Indian-sponsored regime with the connivance of the Government of India, is deteriorating steadily. The First General Secretary of the Kashmir Political Conference, Munshi Mohiuddin, was released on 20 December 1958, from the Pachutkud jail in a critical state of health after about three years of detention. Mr. Ghulam Mohiuddin Kara, the Founder-President of the Kashmir Political Conference, Khwaja Ghulam Mohammad Mir, Mohammed Sultan Khan, Khwaja Ghulam Mohammad Butt and Khwaja Badruddin Hindo, members of the Organizing Committee, who have been lodged in jail for three to six years, have fallen prey to various serious ailments. Certain other Kashmir Political Conference leaders, including Mohammad Amin Nahvi, Sher Abdul Aziz, Khwaja Abdul Hamid Kara and Khwaja Mohammad Abdullah Paul, who were detained in Srinagar Central Jail, have been suffering from serious diseases for the last few months.

Above all, the Indian-sponsored regime has withdrawn the detention order of Sheikh Abdullah himself for the sole purpose of depriving him of the special treatment to which the former Premier of Kashmir was entitled under the law. As a result of this order, Sheikh Abdullah is being treated as an ordinary criminal defendant. This will obviously jeopardize the safety of the veteran leader of Kashmir, and also hamper his defence in his stage-managed trial. I need hardly point out that this will rouse the deep anger of the people of both Kashmir and Pakistan.

I request that this letter be circulated to the members of the Security Council as a Council document.

(Signed) Agha SHAHI

Acting Permanent Representative

of Pakistan to the United Nations

(Source: UN Document no. 4157)