THE verdant valleys and snow-capped peaks of Kashmir have long been shrouded in a mist of political contention, but beneath the fog of competing narratives lies a clear, stark and profoundly neglected legal architecture. The present-day reality in the region, characterized by the widespread use of coercive domestic criminal law to silence dissent and the punitive attachment of properties, is not merely a humanitarian crisis or a political dispute. It represents a systematic and fundamental breach of international legal commitments, a unilateral dismantling of a painstakingly constructed United Nations framework and a violation of the very conditional terms upon which Indian military presence was first established.

To view Kashmir solely through the lens of territorial claim is to miss the profound legal abdication at its heart; the issue is one of broken trusteeship and the weaponization of law against a population whose final political status remains, under international law, undecided and awaiting a democratic verdict. Historical documentation reveals that India’s 1947 accession was a temporary and conditional admittance based on a specifically provisional Instrument of Accession, rather than an act of sovereign conquest. The Indian Army was permitted entry for four limited purposes: to defend the territory against external aggression and to protect the life, property, honour and civil rights of the people. Under this protective mandate, which resembled a trusteeship, the armed force was supplemental to and subservient to the state government’s authority. Until a final........

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