Islamabad, February 22, 2023 (PPI-OT):President Dr Arif Alvi has called for highlighting the grave human rights abuses and heinous crimes being perpetrated by Indian troops in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK). President Arif Alvi was talking to a delegation of All Parties Hurriyat Conference Azad Jammu and Kashmir (APHC-AJK) chapter led by Convener Mahmood Ahmad Saghar that called on him at Aiwan-e-Sadr in Islamabad on Tuesday. He maintained that the atrocities being committed by the Indian forces on the people of IIOJK needed to be highlighted and raised at all fora so that the real face of India is exposed.
The President urged the international community to play its role in implementing the United Nations Security Council’s resolutions and also hold India accountable for its crimes in IIOJK. He deplored that these resolutions on Kashmir had not yet been implemented despite the being the oldest ones on the agenda of the UNSC. Dr Arif Alvi reiterated that the people of Pakistan stood with their Kashmiri brethren and Pakistan would continue to extend all possible moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiris in their just struggle for securing their right to self-determination.
The President highlighted that India was trying to speed up the process of demographic changes through various measures such as issuing over 4.5 million domiciles to Indian citizens for permanently settling them in IIOJK and putting up the Kashmiris’ land for sale to non-Kashmiris. He termed these acts as blatant violations of the UNSC resolutions, and international law, including the 4th Geneva Convention. Dr Arif Alvi said that India was involved in the ethnic cleansing of Muslims, adding that as per Genocide Watch, IIOJK was on the brink of genocide. He also referred to the reports by the Office of UN High Commissioner on Human Rights that called for establishment of a Commission of Inquiry to investigate human rights abuses in IIOJK.
The APHC-AJK leaders apprised the President of the current situation in IIOJK. They informed that over 600,000 Kashmiris had been martyred at the hands of the Indian occupation forces since 1947, and thousands of houses had been burnt and destroyed. They said that IIOJK had been held hostage at the hands of 900,000 Indian forces’ personnel who had imposed an unprecedented military siege and restrictions on the fundamental rights and freedoms of the Kashmiri people.
The APHC-AJK leaders also highlighted that the Kashmiri leadership had been incarcerated, and extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and torture of the Kashmiri youth had become a norm in the occupied territory. They pointed out that India was effacing the Kashmiri identity and culture but it would not be allowed to succeed in her designs to suppress the resilient Kashmiri people.
The APHC-AJK delegation also included Muhammad Farooq Rehmani, Ghulam Muhammad Safi, Syed Yousuf Naseem, Muhammad Rafiq Dar, Mir Tahir Masood, Sheikh Abdul Mateen, Sanaullah Dar, Sheikh Muhammad Yaqoob, Hassan Bana, Dawood Yousafzai, Javed Iqbal Butt, Mushtaq Ahmed Butt, Zahid Ashraf and Imtiaz Wani.
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