S. TARIQ The other day, I read a news item on the internet that said: UN asks India to stop using UN helmets in Kashmir. The report said that the Indian Paramilitary Rapid Action Force was using UN marked blue helmets, while quelling the popular revolt in Indian Occupied Kashmir. The report further said that the practice had already been reported to the authorities by the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan. However, the response of Prabhakar Tripathi, a spokesman for Indian Paramilitary Forces, said tons about the disdain with which India treats the August World Body and its Charter. We have been using them elsewhere in the country as well. I dont think there is anything wrong in using these helmets and shields, Tripathi said. Indias mockery of the UN began with its annexation of Kashmir and an arrogant denial to hold a plebiscite in accordance with the UN resolutions on the issue. This led to a series of uprisings in the Indian Occupied Area and four armed conflicts with Pakistan. In the aftermath of the 1971 Indo-Pak war and in accordance with the Simla Agreement, the Ceasefire Line dividing the Independent or Azad Kashmir and the Indian Occupied Zone was re-designated as the Line of Control. This cosmetic change however, did nothing to reduce provocations by Indian troops through shelling and firing at innocent Kashmiris in the liberated area and on Pakistani positions across the Line of Control (LoC). Chatting to a former member of the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan, I was told that while Pakistan allowed full access to spots where these violations took place, the Indian military had denied such access to the observers and had restricted their movement to Srinagar. Surprisingly, the UN remained in a state of obeisance like apathy at what could best be described as a virtual detention of its military observer staff. Not content with firing provocations, the Indian military rent the Simla Agreement thrice in acts of territorial aggression and occupation across the LOC in Siachin, Chorbat La and Qambar, with the UN looking on as a silent and condescending observer. It was therefore well within moral justification when Pakistan found an opportunity and retaliated in Kargil. Unfortunately, what had been a brilliant military move was lost by succumbing to coercive international diplomacy. The use of UN helmets to commit state oppression appears to be a deliberate act intended to embarrass an organisation committed to eliminating human rights violations and state terrorism from the globe. It is all the more alarming as it has been perpetrated by a country that is vying to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council. The question is, whether the UN has the courage to take up this issue and re-enforce its writ, which appears to have been eroded by rogue states like India. The caption of this column is not a question that can be dismissed, but a fact that each permanent member of the UN needs to seriously ponder upon and redress before the very purpose of the organisation is killed and the world pushed into conflicts that may very well be the precursor of doomsday itself. The writer is a freelance columnist.