ISLAMABAD (Urdu Times) Pakistan expresses concern over human rights violations in occupied Kashmir

ISLAMABAD (Urdu Times) A UN report on human rights violations in occupied Kashmir has stated that serious human rights violations are being committed against Kashmiris by Indian forces.
These violations include detention, torture, disconnection of prisoners, deprivation of legal process, demolition of houses, forced evictions, communication blackouts, and restrictions on press freedom.
The Pakistan Foreign Office has expressed deep concern over the UN report, which has identified serious systematic human rights violations in Indian-occupied Kashmir. According to the details, UN experts had expressed concern over serious human rights violations in Indian-occupied Kashmir, which came to light after the terrorist attack in Pahalgam in April this year, which India had blamed on Pakistan without any evidence.
A press release issued by the Foreign Office said, “Pakistan expresses deep concern over the recent findings of the UN Special Procedures experts regarding India’s illegal actions being carried out in Indian-occupied Kashmir.”

The statement said that the report once again highlights the gross and systematic human rights violations faced by the Kashmiri people under Indian occupation.
It also expressed deep concern over the observations of the UN experts that as a result of India’s actions, around 2,800 people, including journalists, students and human rights activists, have been detained. It further said that the continued enactment of draconian laws like the Public Safety Act (PSA) and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) has paved the way for indefinite and arbitrary detentions.
The Foreign Office spokesperson said that the torture, custodial deaths, incommunicado detention, denial of legal proceedings, denial of family contact, punitive demolition of homes, forced evictions, repeated communication blackouts, and severe restrictions on press freedom, including the closure of 8,000 social media accounts, as well as the increase in hate speech, mob violence, and harassment of Kashmiris and Muslim communities across India, are highly condemnable and cause for concern.
“These findings confirm that Pakistan’s long-standing concerns regarding state-sponsored atrocities against Kashmiri Muslims were justified and that discrimination against minorities continues across India.” The Foreign Office of Pakistan called on India to stop its oppressive measures and unconditionally release all arbitrarily detained persons in occupied Kashmir.
It also urged India to take practical steps to end the persecution of all religious minorities, especially Muslims and Christians. It was further stated that Pakistan reiterates its commitment to a peaceful, just and lasting solution to the Kashmir dispute, which is in line with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and the aspirations of the Kashmiri people. The Foreign Office urged India to abandon its oppressive policies, roll back demographic and legal changes, restore fundamental freedoms and seriously engage in meaningful dialogue.
It was further stated that Pakistan will continue to extend moral, political and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri people in their just struggle against foreign occupation. The UN report also made it clear that after the Pahalgam attack, Indian forces arrested more than 2,000 Kashmiris and demolished their homes on a large scale.
Several detainees were allegedly tortured, cut off from contact and denied access to lawyers and family members. These measures are disproportionate restrictions on freedom of expression, assembly and peaceful protest. Remember that on August 5, 2019, India revoked the special status of illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir. Our Kashmiri brothers and sisters are living under a brutal military occupation, a military occupation that is rarely seen in modern times. It is worth remembering that the spirit of freedom of the Kashmiris is still strong today.
This spirit among the Kashmiris is the religion of their ancestors who fought against the Dogra Raj. For the past 7 decades, the Kashmiris have been deprived of their right to self-determination, but despite this, the Kashmiris continue to strive for their rights and no amount of atrocities and oppression has deterred them from their determination. The hearts of the people of Pakistan beat with their Kashmiri brothers and sisters. Pakistan has always supported the peaceful resolution of the Kashmir issue in the light of the aspirations of the Kashmiris and the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.Despite the ups and downs of global politics, Pakistan will maintain this support until the Kashmiris are granted their right to self-determination and their freedom.
The government of Pakistan has been consistently raising the Kashmir issue and India’s human rights violations before the world.
The Kashmir issue has been discussed several times in the United Nations Security Council over the decades. Many leaders from around the world have condemned India’s human rights violations in occupied Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan has expressed grave concern over India’s aggressive actions in occupied Jammu and Kashmir since August 5, 2019.
The situation on the ground in occupied Jammu and Kashmir and the unilateral and illegal actions of the occupying Indian forces are a manifestation of the fact that the erasure of Kashmiri identity has begun.
The forced change in demographic distribution through changes to the centuries-old domicile law is part of this process. Wherever this step has been taken, the bitterness against the intentions and actions of the occupying power has increased among the local population.
Not unaware of the Kashmiri occupying power’s intentions to change the population, India first used this strategy during the partition of the subcontinent. In November 1947, the Maharaja’s Dogra forces and RSS-inspired rioters massacred about 300,000 Kashmiri Muslims in Jammu. The genocide and massacre resulted in the forced displacement of about 10,000 Muslims from Jammu.
This genocide was supported by the state and was an attempt to change the population ratio of Jammu. The Muslim population in Jammu was more than 60 percent and thus they were in the majority there, but as a result of this massacre and forced displacement, the Muslim population in Jammu became a minority and this artificial change in the population ratio persists to this day. Today, the people of occupied Kashmir are already living in fear of a repeat of the tragedy.
In addition to changing the population distribution, the Indian government has also passed a law to abolish Urdu, which has been the official language of the region for 135 years. Muslim names of public places have also been changed and the representation of Kashmiris is being artificially reduced through forced delimitation. All these measures are aimed at depriving Kashmiris of their identity. All these measures were made possible only when India unilaterally and illegally revoked Articles 370 and 35A against the wishes of the Kashmiri people. Although Pakistan has never recognized the implementation of any article of the Indian Constitution in occupied Kashmir, the revocation of Articles 370 and 35A has resulted in a material change in the situation on the ground, which is a clear violation of bilateral agreements and international resolutions. To prevent mass resistance against these harsh measures, the Indian occupation forces have turned occupied Kashmir into a prison that has no parallel in the world. Today, there is one Indian soldier deployed in Kashmir for every 8 Kashmiris. Following the terrorist attack in Pahalgam in April this year, thousands of political leaders, teachers, social activists, journalists and students are in jails across India under false cases and black laws. The condition of several Hurriyat leaders is critical and their families are worried about their safety. These actions show that the BJP government’s Hindutva-based political policies and actions are not only a threat to the political identity and history of Kashmiris but also a threat to the peace of the region and the global order based on the values ​​of freedom and choice. India has changed a lot under the BJP government and is busy trying to achieve supremacy. India wants to change the status quo through the use of force and military adventures. On the one hand, India is sponsoring terrorism in Pakistan, and on the other hand, it has also started a propaganda campaign to defame Pakistan at the global level. All these are mentioned in the dossier prepared by Pakistan on India-sponsored disinformation and terrorism.

The internationally renowned European Union Disinfo Lab has exposed India’s efforts to mislead the UN system and the European Union Parliament by using fake NGOs and fake news websites to defame Pakistan. This situation raises some important questions regarding Pakistan and the region.
The question is whether the current Indian government is a reasonable government or an unreliable government with ideological extremism. The struggle in Kashmir is the struggle of real Kashmiris and it will always have public support against the Indian occupation forces. After the recent UN report, India, which has military ambitions, has lost its support in occupied Kashmir, if any.Kashmiris have always shown courage, strength and steadfastness in the face of injustice and state brutality.
The international community has assured them of their political rights through UN Security Council resolutions and Kashmiris will continue their struggle against Indian occupation until they get their political rights.
Pakistan will continue to shake the conscience of the international community over the atrocities being committed against Kashmiris. Pakistan demands that the international community give the Kashmiris the right to self-determination to decide their future in accordance with the Security Council resolutions.
The Kashmir issue exists as an unfulfilled promise before the international conscience.
Insha Allah, the day is not far when Kashmiris will be free from Indian oppression and tyranny,
Since August 5, 2019, Kashmir has practically become a police state. The constitution of language restriction that was established on that day continues with full vigor even today.
Speaking against government measures is a crime and anyone who dares to speak is sent to jail. The Indian government admits that more than 15,000 people were imprisoned after August 5, of which a few thousand are still in prison.
Those who were released were given a surety bond that they would not speak but would live like the blind, deaf and dumb. Even though they saw, they would not see, even though they heard, they would not hear, and if they got the chance to speak, they would become dumb.
During this time, ambassadors from Western and European countries were also brought to Kashmir to show them that Kashmir was peaceful, but this silence was not a natural silence, but a forced silence, and Kashmir has practically been turned into a graveyard that has become a home for walking corpses.
With the revocation of special status and the bifurcation of the state on August 5, 2019, Kashmiri journalism also fell victim. First, telephones and mobile phones were shut down, and at the same time, the internet network was choked. The result was that newspapers began to crave news. The censorship was so extreme that local newspapers became unaware of the news from their surrounding areas. Then, only what the capitalists wanted to report began to be reported.
The international media did a great deal of reporting on the ground realities, but that task was not easy because there was no telephone or internet for transmitting news and images. Under Article 370 and Article 35 ‘A’, only the Pashtuns here had the right to buy property and do government jobs in Jammu and Kashmir, but when the Pashtun residency laws were replaced by a new residency law or domicile law, local government jobs in Kashmir were opened to the entire country. But when there was protest against it, a slight amendment was made and a 10-year stay in Jammu was made mandatory for obtaining residency. It is worth noting that in the 2011 census, there were 2.5 million foreign workers in Jammu and Kashmir, while 700,000 forces personnel were also posted here. Apart from this, thousands of employees of the Indian government have also been posted here for years. Also, more than 600,000 Hindu refugees from West Pakistan are also residing here. Thus, the population of Jammu and Kashmir will suddenly increase by millions, which the local population is rightly seeing in the context of changing the demographic ratio and the Muslim majority community fears that the real plan is to turn the Muslim majority into a minority.
This has happened once before in Jammu and Kashmir. In 1947, during the partition of the subcontinent, 4 lakh Muslims were massacred in Jammu, turning the Muslim majority into a minority, and this time, the public believes that if massacre is possible, people will be settled here through backdoors and a time will come when Hindus will be in majority and local Muslims will become a minority. Now, the army has also been given the authority to identify strategic or tactical areas, and once the army declares an area as a strategic area, there is no need to take permission from anyone to carry out any kind of construction activity there, whereas before August 5, the army needed permission from the government even for minor construction here and the army was not eligible to buy land, but only had the authority to lease government land and rent private land, but now this restriction is gone. Now the army can take land wherever it wants and for this, the area has to be declared a strategic area only, after which family quarters for the soldiers will also be built there. The local population fears that now military cantonments will actually be built in places where army family colonies will be built and tomorrow these family colony residents will also be claiming residency. Kashmir is based on UN resolutions and it is clearly written in these resolutions that only the local residents of divided Kashmir will decide their fate by participating in the referendum, but Delhi has abolished the concept of local residency. Now there is a residency law. The demographic ratio will change completely in the coming years.
Then if, God forbid, the time comes to implement the UN resolutions, then who will recognize who is a local and who is a non-local because everything will be confused.
This is why Kashmiris were considering the August 5th action as an attack on Pakistan’s state policy.
What will be the fallout of the August 5th, 2019 action, only time will tell, but the evidence suggests that nothing good is brewing in the womb of time. India will find itself in a vortex, both internally and externally, from which liberation, although not impossible, will be extremely difficult.