15081958 Letter dated 15 August 1958 from the representative of India Arthur S. Lall to the President of the Security Council
Letter dated 15 August 1958 from the representative of India Arthur S. Lall to the President of the Security Council
1. Permit me to draw your attention to the communication addressed to you by the acting permanent representative of Pakistan and circulated as document S/4048 of 15 July 1958. It is not the intention of the Government of India to prolong this correspondence interminably. For its part, the Government of India do not think it proper or dignified that Pakistan should burden the Security Council with baseless communications and use the medium of the United Nations to give. publicity to tendentious canards and distortions of fact. While therefore, we shall refrain, in the future, from answering such letters from the representative of Pakistan, the Government of India will always be glad to furnish correct factual information to the United Nations or any one of its organs, Members, or authorities, or to anyone genuinely seeking information.
2. The acting permanent representative of Pakistan has sought in his letter of 15 July 1958 to justify the so-called "liberation movement" started by Mr. Ghulam Abbas. He referred to alleged widespread support for the movement in Pakistan from almost all the important political parties and has stated that this has rendered difficult the task of his Government in checking the movement. It is stated hundreds of volunteers from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and from the frontier districts of West Pakistan have been arrested for defying the ban and that the arrests of these persons have caused widespread resentment among the people of Pakistan. In connexion with these allegations it is interesting to read a report from the Pakistan Times, Lahore, dated 29 July, 1958 reproduced below, according to which Sardar Mohammed Ibrahim, the President to the Azad Kashmir Government, contradicted exaggerated reports of the so-called movement, particularly reports about the number of persons arrested by the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir Government:
"The President of the Azad Kashmir Government, Sardar Mohammed Ibrahim Khan, on Monday contradicted a news item appearing in a section of the press on Monday that forty-five persons were arrested near Mirpur on Sunday.
"He told APP in Lahore that he had contacted his headquarters at Muzaffarabad and had been informed that no procession was taken out in Mirpur on Sunday and there had been no arrest in any part of Mirpur. The news, he said, was baseless and without any foundation.
"Continuing, he said no new front had been opened in Madarpur, District Poonch, for crossing the cease-fire line. The news to that effect, he said, was also wrong.
"Sardar Mohammed Ibrahim said that according to up to-date figures available with the Azad Kashmir Government, there were at present only forty persons under arrest in Azad Kashmir."
3. The Government of India would leave it to the judgement of the members of the Security Council to draw their own conclusions from the contents of the letter from the acting permanent representative of Pakistan. It is obvious that the campaign started by Mr. Gulham Abbas is sustained by Pakistan's own policy and encouragement. In other words the much publicised assertions of the Government of Pakistan "condemning" the campaign stand clearly exposed.
4. The acting permanent representative of Pakistan has, in his letter, referred to the right of the people of Kashmir to go to their native place. The Government of India has no doubt that if Pakistan's illegal occupation were withdrawn, the people at present living in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir would heave a sigh of relief and would be reunited with their brethren across the cease-fire line and enjoy the fruits of democracy and economic well-being. 5. I would request that this letter be circulated to the members of the Security Council.
(Signed) ARTHUR S. LALL Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations
(Source: UN Document No, S/4086)