ISLAMABAD: The speakers at a seminar on Thursday strongly condemned the recent spate of violence and oppression unleashed by Indian security forces in Jammu Kashmir and called upon India to immediately stop the massacre.
The seminar organised by Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Young Parliamentarian Forum Pakistan was held at the Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services (PIPS) to mark the ‘Kashmir Black Day’ and express solidarity with Kashmiri people. Peace and Culture Organization chairperson Mushaal Hussein Mullick in her speech stressed that peaceful and legitimate struggle of Kashmiri people for their right to self-determination could not be crushed. She said that more than 10,000 people were missing since 1989, leaving more than 1,500 half-widows after the forced disappearances of their husbands by the Indian forces.
She said in the era of globalisation, it was impossible to ignore the demand of the Kashmiri and Palestinian people. She said the international community should stand with Kashmiri civilians including youth, women and children, who were being brutally tortured by Indian security forces. Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Nafees Zakaria said people in the disputed Kashmiri state had suffered massive human rights abuses and since 1947, more than 200,000 people had been killed by the Indian security forces. He said since July 8 after the killing of Kashmiri youth Burhan Wani, 150 civilians were killed, 15,000 injured, nearly 7,000 arrested and 200 fully blinded while around 1,000 were partially blinded by use of pellet guns.
Syed Faiz Naqshbandi, representing the All Pakistan Hurriyat Conference (APHC), spoke on the legal perspective of Indian laws relating to human rights. He mentioned that Indian security forces had been given virtual immunity to commit human rights violations in Kashmir under Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and Public Safety Act (PSA). He said the continuous occupation of the Valley was an attempt to dodge the international community on non-implementation of resolutions of the UN Security Council.
He regretted that the Indian government had given its security forces the right-to-shoot innocent people. Murtaza Shibli, a writer who recently visited Srinagar and other areas in the disputed state, shared an eye-account of the plight of Kashmiri people. He mentioned that Jammu Kashmir was the most militarised zone on earth with more than 80,000 army and paramilitary forces and 200,000 police intelligence deployed in the valley. Shibli said there was a complete siege of the valley with curfew imposed most of the time in Srinagar.
He said that it was a common practice of Indian security forces to attack peaceful rallies of Kashmiris, vandalise the hospitals and damage ambulances. The messages of Azad Jammu Kashmir’s President Masood Khan, APHC leaders Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Syed Ali Shah Geelani were read on the occasion.
Members of the National Assembly Shaza Fatima Khwaja read out the message of NA Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, while MNA Romina Khurshid Alam recited a poem on Kashmir. A short documentary on ‘Kashmir: Heaven made hell’ was screened on the occasion.
.jpg)
.jpg)
