United Nations/Islamabad, Sep 27 (Reporter) Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday raked up the Kashmir issue in his address at the 79th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session, and also touched on the Gaza war and Islamophobia. At a time when Assembly elections are being held in Jammu and Kashmir, with large popular participation of the general populace and political parties in the election process, Sharif sought to draw parallels between Palestine and Jammu and Kashmir in his UN address. He condemned the Narendra Modi government’s August 5, 2019, action of scrapping Article 370, the provision that granted special status to the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state, and accused New Delhi of attempting to impose a “final solution” by illegally altering the region’s demographic composition, the Express Tribune reported. With the scrapping of Article 370, the Modi government has been able to introduce many welfare measures, especially for the poor and marginalised and women and elderly, in Jammu and Kashmir that were not being allowed to be implemented earlier, while governance has also been streamlined. Sharif also said that India has brought in nearly a million troops in Kashmir, which he termed as a "classic settler-colonial project” designed to turn the Muslim majority state into a minority. The Pakistan prime minister’s statement comes as the UN has time and again criticised his country over the fast diminishing status of the country’s minority communities, including Hindus and Christians. He also said that Pakistan would "respond decisively" to any aggression by India across the Line of Control (LoC), the border dividing the two parts of Kashmir. “To secure durable peace, India must reverse the unilateral and illegal measures it has taken since August 2019 and enter into dialogue for the peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in accordance with UNSC resolutions and the wishes of the Kashmiri people,” Sharif said. India has said that scrapping of Article 370 is a done deed, and nothing can reverse the action, and that Jammu and Kashmir belongs only to India and that Pakistan or the UN have no locus standi over it. Sharif also expressed concern over what he termed as “the rise of Islamophobia”, pointing to recent desecrations of the Quran, attacks on mosques, and the negative stereotyping of Muslims...////...