Despite periodic flashes of activity, the situation surrounding Indian Held Kashmir (IHK) has remained static over the years. India refuses, point blank, to talk about Kashmir in any way, asserts it ownership of the disputed province despite United Nations resolutions prohibiting such an action, while riots, violent crackdown and unrest become a daily part of life in Kashmir. There may be false dawns of diplomacy and sudden upsurges in force used by the Indian occupying force, but this base line remains the same.

However, recent reports suggest that the present Indian government may be trying to permanently alter the nature of the conflict by artificially altering the demographic makeup of the province.

Addressing a weekly media briefing on Thursday, Foreign Office Spokesman Nafees Zakaria spoke at length about India and its subversive activities inside Pakistan. A significant portion of that address was devoted to India's activities inside Kashmir, which were dubbed even more worrisome. He said that reportedly, the Indian government had started issuing domicile certificates to non-Kashmiri Hindus in the Jammu region – a move that is aimed at diluting the Muslim majority in the province. Forcibly resettling areas with a different demographic group has never been a peaceful process – as the trouble around Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory has shown – and more unrest in the already conflict-wracked region is to be expected. Another aspect is that by changing the composition of the province India is trying to to affect the basis of Pakistan's claim; hoping to nullify if after the fact.

Not only are these dangerous actions, they are prohibited by United Nations resolutions on the Kashmir dispute and generally by International Law on occupied and disputed territory.

Already the mere announcement of the move is starting to cause unrest. Strikes have been called all across IHK to protest the decision and daily life in the province has ground to a halt; the Indian media reports. There may have been a lull in violence across Kashmir after the upsurge following Burhan Wani's death, but as things stand, things are poised to heat up any minute.

Condemnable as India's actions are, calling them out is not going to solve the problem on its own. The government and the Foreign Office must take this issue up in the most stringent way possible. This is not just a bilateral issue anymore, a province and a people are being forcibly engineered.