India Slams Pakistan For Efforts To Bring ‘Material Change’ In PoK

NEW DELHI: The Ministry of External Affairs on Monday said that India has lodged protest with Pakistan for its efforts to bring "material change" in Pak-occupied territories in Jammu and Kashmir and asked Islamabad to vacate them.

India has issued a demarche to Islamabad protesting Pakistan Supreme Court's order on so-called Gilgit-Baltistan.

Pakistan Supreme Court allowed the amendment to the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan Order of 2018 to conduct the general elections in the region.

The court also ordered that a caretaker government be set up during the interim period and also observed that Gilgit-Baltistan came within its domain.

"The entire Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including the areas of Gilgit and Baltistan, are an integral part of India.

"Pakistan's government or its judiciary has no locus standi on territories illegally and forcibly occupied by it," India said in a note, a leading channel reported.

"India completely rejects such actions and continued attempts to bring material changes in Pakistan occupied areas of the Indian territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Instead, Pakistan should immediately vacate all areas under its illegal occupation," it read.

"Such actions can neither hide the illegal occupation of parts of Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh by Pakistan nor the grave human rights violations, exploitation and denial of freedom to the people residing in Pakistan occupied territories for the past seven decades," it further read.

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