New Delhi, March 12, 2022 (PPI-OT):Illegally detained senior leader of All Parties Hurriyat Conference, Nayeem Ahmed Khan, has welcomed the recent report presented to Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council denouncing wide ranging atrocities being inflicted by India on the people of Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
In a message from New Delhi’s infamous Tihar jail, Nayeem Ahmed Khan said the report presented by the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Ahmed Shaheed, was a true bill of indictment against India, which besides highlighting the other issues of concern takes the lid off the crimes Indian government and its forces are committing against the Kashmiris.
The APHC leader said, the references made about the human rights situation in IIOJK in the report serve as an eye-opener for the international community and influential world governments who choose to stay silent on the Kashmiris’ sufferings. He said that in light of the chilling report on the human rights situation in the occupied territory there was a dire need of enhanced vigilance and continued monitoring on the part of the UN and other rights bodies.
Nayeem Khan said that the blanket impunity enjoyed by the Indian armed forces under draconian laws was the main obstacle in bringing to book the Indian forces’ personnel involved in serious war crimes in IIOJK such as extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances and rape.
He pointed out that the use of black laws like Public Safety Act (PSA) and Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) by the Indian government in the aftermath of 05 August 2019 has pushed the occupied territory further into a quagmire of uncertainty. The Modi government’s ruthless suppression of dissent under the notorious Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), he said, has left no room for the democratic dissent in IIOJK.
The APHC leader said the authoritarian policies of the Indian government have turned IIOJK into an open-air prison where no one has the right to speak or raise his/her voice against the Indian atrocities. “Be it a politician, journalist, human rights activist or a common Kashmiri everyone is treated like a third-class citizen who have been robbed of their fundamental freedoms”, he said, adding that anyone who dares to speak is being silenced forever by being jailed under sedition laws.
Nayeem Khan he said it is high time that the world’s influential governments should take a holistic review of their policies towards Kashmir and take cognizance of the heinous crimes being committed by India against the Kashmiris.
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