Pakistan on Sunday condemned increasing harassment, illegal arrests and registration of “fake criminal cases” against journalists and civil society activists in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir and called upon the international community to hold New Delhi accountable for its actions.
The Foreign Office, in a statement, called out the reported attack on the Kashmir Press Club on Saturday, saying it “manifestly reflects India’s entrenched use of brute force and coercion to forcibly silence those raising voices against its horrendous crimes and egregious human rights violations in IIOJK”.
According to a report in The Print, “unfamiliar” activities were seen at the KPC on Saturday when a few journalists accompanied by policemen reached there and claimed to be the club’s “new management”.
The policemen claimed to be personal security officers of one of the journalists who released a statement to the media stating that “some journalist forums” had chosen them to be the new office-bearers.
The claims of the interim body were disputed soon by a statement issued by around nine journalist bod-ies in IOK who denounced the forcible takeover of the KPC office with “open support from the administra-tion” and termed it “a wrong and dangerous precedent”.
In its statement, the FO said the increasing use of draconian and inhumane laws including the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, Public Safety Act and Armed Forces Special Powers Act with impunity in IOK re-flected India’s “colonial mindset”.
