ISLAMABAD: Health experts on Tuesday claimed the Indian government’s extensive mining, dam construction, colonial settlements for Indian employees and soldiers, and other environmental degradation practices are responsible for the rise in cancer cases and other illnesses in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
The Kashmir Media Service reported that President Dr. Nisarul Hassan, the Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK), said that due to environmental pollution, cancer cases are continuously increasing, which has become epidemic in the Kashmir valley.
He also noted the increasing number of brick kilns, vehicles, cement and other factories, and construction as the additional factors involved in deteriorating air quality in the region.
He claimed that “this adds to the tremendous burden of cancer in the valley.” According to research, lung cancer- the most common type among men in Kashmir, is enhanced by air pollution.
In the Kashmir region, environmental degradation may be traced back to the period following the partition of the Indian subcontinent into Pakistan and India, which had a significant impact on the Himalayan region, according to a study article titled “War in Kashmir and its effect on the environment” by scholar Jennifer Crook.
According to the research paper, the extensive deployment of the Indian army “led to large-scale poaching of rare species such as snow leopard, ibex, blue sheep, antelopes, and urian the big-horned sheep. ”
Crook wrote, “Earlier, the soldiers were killing the animals for food, but when the underpaid soldiers realized the worth of animal skins and furs in the international markets, they began to slaughter animals in Kashmir with much greater zeal.”— APP
