As the Organisation of Islamic Conference endorses Kashmiris right to decide their future in accordance with the relevant UNSC resolutions, which, indeed, correspond to their aspirations, these poor, beleaguered people, struggling for decades to win freedom from India, continue to suffer at the hands of its security forces stationed in the occupied state. The OIC might have failed to realise the promise of its early days of King Faisal and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, thanks to the indifferent attitude of some of their successors and the others tame compliance of Western wishes. However, the fact remains that Muslims the world over cherish the hope that the leaders of their countries would view the gravity of the Wests present anti-Muslim posture in the right perspective, and ginger themselves up to make the organisation into a united, cohesive and viable force in global politics. Nevertheless, even in its present form there should be no doubt that it represents the voice of the Muslim World, especially when it speaks for the subjugated people of Kashmir and Palestine; for there can be no two opinions on these issues among the Muslims. Thus, OICs opinion on the Kashmir dispute, embodied in its Abu Dhabi declaration issued on Friday, must carry weight, at least in that sense. It is the voice of 1.5 billion, one-fifth of the world population. Leave aside Muslims, even right-thinking non-Muslims in India and elsewhere are raising their voice against the injustice being done to the Kashmiris. It is not only their inalienable right to self-determination, but also the other dimension that the dispute has acquired as a result of the forcible and prolonged occupation of their land by India i.e., the massive human rights violations, that is increasingly attracting the worlds attention. If Arundhati Roy, noted Indian writer and human rights activist, expresses her outrage at the subjugated Kashmiris plight and maintains that the only desirable settlement of the issue is to grant them the right to self-determination, she is only sharing the thoughts of Syed Ali Geelani, other Kashmiri leaders and the fair-minded in the world. The strength of local populations defiance of Indias hold over the Valley is evident from the fact that though it kept Syed Ali Geelani locked up in his house, preventing him from offering the obligatory Friday prayers for the 78 times, the 700,000-strong Indian security force present there could not stop the youth breaking loose and coming out on the streets to protest against the Indian rule. At the same time, India has come in for censure by UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders Margaret Sekaggya for the atrocities its armed forces are committing in the occupied state. Following the numerous testimonies about those killed, tortured, ill-treated, disappeared, threatened, arbitrarily arrested and detained collected during her 11-day tour of the state, she has called for the repeal of oppressive laws. It is time India realised that if Kashmiris dream for independence has not vanished during its 62 years brutal occupation, it never will.