ISLAMABAD, Sep 10 (APP): Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Tuesday said the world must come forward to resolve the Kashmir issue and urged the UN Human Rights Council to constitute a commission of inquiry for investigation into blatant and grave human rights violations in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJ&K). “The people of this occupied land are suffering systematic and serial violations of their fundamental freedoms,” he said while speaking at the 42nd session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
He said that from the last six weeks, over eight million Kashmiris, already in the clutches of decades-long Indian oppression, had been virtually caged by an illegal military occupation – that has swelled in ranks, within days, from 700,000 to nearly a million troops. “India has transformed IOK into the largest prison on this planet, with virtually no access to basic amenities and means of communication. Shops are running short of supplies, hospitals of life-saving medicines and the sick and wounded unable to access even emergency health services,” the Foreign Minister told the UNHRC. He said the Council should take steps to bring to justice the perpetrators of human rights violations of the innocent Kashmir people.
The Foreign Minister said if India has nothing to hide, it should allow unhindered access to the Commission of Inquiry. He said Pakistan stands ready to allow access to the proposed Commission of Inquiry, or other mechanisms, on our side of the Line of Control; together with similar access to Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir.
Shah Mahmood Qureshi said the UN Human Rights Council should urge India to immediately lift the curfew and reverse the clampdown and communications blackout in Occupied Kashmir. India should also be asked to stop the use of pellet guns, end the bloodshed and restore fundamental freedoms and liberties.
