Muhammad Ibrahim Bhatti
India’s carefully constructed image as a functioning democracy is not merely being questioned, it is being demolished by its own conduct. Since August 2019, more than 1,074 Kashmiris have been killed in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, over 37,000 people arrested, nearly 5,000 detained through cordon-and-search operations in 2026 alone, and 293 properties seized, not from criminals, but from families whose only offence was refusing to accept occupation as a permanent condition. In October 2026 alone, Indian forces killed two Kashmiri youths in a staged encounter in Kupwara’s Jamgund-Keran area. Earlier this month, Indian police attached properties worth over 130 million rupees in Srinagar. And on 15 October, India escalated its military footprint further intensifying drills, building new military roads in Poonch and erecting high-tech camps across the Valley. This is what India calls normalcy.
The audacity of India’s false narrative was exposed on 1 October 2026, when a man declared dead by Indian media was shown alive on Pakistani media. India had announced the killing of a man identified as ‘Musa’, circulating his photograph as evidence of a successful counter-terrorism operation. Yet the same man, identified as Mohammad Asif, a retired Pakistani soldier, appeared alive before the cameras, exposing serious questions about the credibility of India’s claims. This incident raises broader concerns about how India portrays killings in IIoJK, where civilians have also been labelled militants or terrorists to justify their deaths. By attaching fabricated identities to the dead, manipulating photographs and presenting disputed killings as security victories, Indian authorities risk turning human lives into instruments of propaganda. These claims demand independent investigation, credible evidence and accountability.
India’s crackdown on dissent continues. On 12 October 2026, Delhi Police removed Jantar Mantar as a permitted protest venue and arrested peaceful protesters. Amnesty International condemned the crackdown, while former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah urged New Delhi on 14 October to address the mistakes of August 2019. Anti-drug activist Parvinder Singh, known as Jhota, was shot dead in a Mansa marketplace on 13 October, raising concerns about the safety of those exposing failures.
In IIoJK, repression is entrenched. Military deployment and laws criticised for enabling impunity accompany arbitrary detentions, raids, restrictions on political leaders and book confiscations. India’s renaming of geographical features has drawn objections. Pakistan’s Foreign Office said unilateral measures cannot change Kashmir’s internationally recognised disputed status or replace the free and impartial plebiscite sought under UN Security Council resolutions. Kashmir’s future cannot be settled through renaming or maps.
Pakistan has made its position unmistakably clear at every level available. On 8 October, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif reiterated before the United Nations that the Kashmir dispute must be resolved peacefully in accordance with relevant UN Security Council resolutions and the wishes of the Kashmiri people — and that India’s unlawful suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty has no legal basis whatsoever. Field Marshal Asim Munir has stated with unwavering conviction that the people of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir have not been broken and will not be broken — and that Kashmir will witness a new dawn of freedom. Pakistan also formally urged India on 3 October to fulfil its international legal obligations on Kashmir. These are not statements made for domestic audiences. They are Pakistan’s consistent diplomatic position, held across every government, every forum and every generation — that the Kashmiri people are owed a plebiscite and that Islamabad will defend that right before every institution on earth.
The world is finally beginning to see India with the clarity it has long denied it. A state that fabricates its own counter-terrorism successes and is exposed by a living man walking into a press conference. A state that bans protest venues, shoots community activists in open markets and detains thousands of civilians through pre-dawn raids. A state whose own former Chief Ministers publicly urge it to correct its errors. A state that intensifies its military occupation while insisting there is no occupation. Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir is not an internal matter. It never was. It is a disputed territory, its people are owed justice, and no amount of staged encounters, renamed maps, military roads or archived protest grounds will make that truth disappear from the conscience of a watching world.
Muhammad Ibrahim Bhatti is a graduate of BS International Relations from the International Islamic University Islamabad and a Research Assistant at the Kashmir Institute of International Relations (KIIR).
