The All Parties Hurriyat Conference has said that Indian troops are killing innocent Kashmiri youth in fake encounters in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir to suppress the Kashmiris’ ongoing freedom struggle.
The APHC spokesman in a statement issued in Srinagar said that the troops abduct innocent Kashmiri youth from their homes, streets and roads, and later extra-judicially kill them in fake encounters during so-called cordon and search operations. He said that in a similar way, the troops martyred four youth in Shopian district on Wednesday.
The spokesman said Indian troops and police have subjected over 8,000 innocent Kashmiris to custodial disappearance since January 1989. He said the families of these persons fear that the forces’ personnel have killed their dear ones in so-called encounters and buried them in the unmarked and mass graves discovered across the territory.
The APHC spokesman said murdering Kashmiris in staged encounters has become a hobby of Indian forces’ personnel as they enjoy impunity for their brutal actions due to the draconian laws imposed by India in IIOJK. He pointed out that thousands of youth have been killed by the troops in fake encounters in the last 33 years in the occupied territory.
The spokesman deplored that the troops involved in the extrajudicial killings, instead of being punished, are rewarded with promotions and cash prizes, which clearly indicate that such brutal murders are carried out under the state policy.
The spokesman pointed out that New Delhi has turned IIOJK into a killing field as 96,148 Kashmiris have fallen to the Indian bullets since January 1989 till September 30, 2022. He said the BJP’s Hindutva regime wants to create fear and terror among the Kashmiri populace by killing innocent Kashmiris in fake encounters but would not succeed to dampen the Kashmiris’ spirit of freedom.
The spokesman said that killing of Kashmiris in staged encounters is a blatant violation of the United Nations Charter and appealed to the world community, including the UN, to take cognizance of the Modi regime’s genocidal policy employed in IIOJK and take practical steps to save the Kashmiris from its onslaught.—KMS
