Islamabad, September 15, 2021 (PPI-OT):The Chairman of Kashmir Institute of International Relations (KIIR) Altaf Hussain Wani has urged the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to hold India accountable for the heinous war crimes its forces are committing against the people in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

Addressing the 48th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, Altaf Wani while speaking on behalf of World Muslim Congress via video link, welcomed the UN High Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet’s remarks on the dire human rights situation in IIOJK.

The KIIR chief, however, expressed his dismay over the Council’s silence and not supporting the call of high commissioner for establishing a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the human rights violations in the occupied territory. He said that the silence on the part of Council has encouraged the government of India to continue its military might against the inhabitants of occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

Referring to the use of repressive state apparatus by the Indian state, he said, “Arbitrary detentions, extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances are part of an ongoing pattern of violations of human rights by Indian forces”. About the worsening rights situation in the occupied territory, he said, “With restrictions on freedom of opinion and expression and other fundamental freedoms, Indian government has snatched the people’s right to mourn and bury their loved ones at their will”.

Briefing the Council about the tragic death and forcible burial of the veteran resistance leader Syed Ali Gilani, he said, “The iconic leader of Kashmir Syed Ali Gilani breathed his last on September 01, while remaining in house arrest for last 11 year”. The Indian occupational forces, he said, barged into his residence, manhandled the bereaved family members, snatched his dead body, and buried it in a nearby graveyard, without consent of his family.

The Indian forces, he said, denied Syed Ali Gilani’s family and his followers to arrange a dignified funeral for the deceased leader. The only crime of the deceased was that he demanded UN recognized right to self-determination.

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