New Delhi: The lack of democracy and development' in Gilgit and Baltistan areas of Pak-occupied Kashmir has come under severe criticism from several Members of European Parliament (MEP), with some of them charging Islamabad with "illegally" separating it from the rest of PoK.

"It is a matter of regret that Pakistan has illegally ceded this region and separated it from rest of Azad Kashmir without the democratic and collective will of the local people," Baroness Emma Nicholson, MEP said at an international conference on Constitutional, Political and Socio-economic Conditions of Gilgit Baltistan at the European Parliament in Brussels late last week.

Coming down heavily on the Pakistani government for "lack of democracy and development" in Gilgit and Baltistan, she said while Islamabad was seeking self-determination in Jammu and Kashmir, "it was not even prepared to allow democracy on its side of the border."

Nicholson had authored a report on the "suppression of human rights" in the Northern Areas of PoK which was adopted by the European Parliament last year.

The British MEP said Islamabad's "failure to introduce and install meaningful democratic institutions in this area was and still is a matter of grave concern for the world community and for the European Parliament," according to a press release here.

Participating in the conference, British MEP Charles Tannock strongly criticised the "discriminatory" policies of Pakistan's Ministry of Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas and said the "political and constitutional restraints imposed by the (Pak) government" had been noted by the world community including the European Parliament.
Source : PTI