Staff Reporter
Islamabad
Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday expressed fear that a massacre akin to Srebrenica may happen in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
In his video message on 25th memorial anniversary of Srebrenica genocide, the prime minister said that 8,000 Indian troops have besieged eight million people of Kashmir.
He urged the world community to take notice and never allow such acts to take place again. “It is important for us to learn a lesson from Srebrenica massacre and the world community must never allow such things to happen again,” the prime minister said in his message.
The premier also extended best wishes on behalf of the people of Pakistan to the people of Bosnia.
“We were shocked and appalled how this massacre was allowed to happen in a United Nations safe haven. I still feel shock [over] how such a thing could have been allowed by the world community.”
In 1995, at least 8,000 mostly Muslim men and boys were chased through woods in and around Srebrenica by Serb troops in what is considered the worst carnage of civilians in Europe since World War II. The slaughter has been confirmed as an act of genocide.
Khan said it was important to learn lessons from the massacre and talked about apprehensions regarding occupied Kashmir. “We see problems for the people of Kashmir as 800,000 troops have besieged eight million people of Kashmir. We are afraid that such a thing might happen there as well.”
He urged the world community to take notice and never allow such massacres to happen again. “From the people of Pakistan I send my salam and best wishes to the people of Bosnia,” the premier said.
Echoing remarks made by the prime minister, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that the world had a “collective responsibility to ensure that history is not repeated”. In a tweet, Qureshi said that what was happening in occupied Kashmir and Palestine was “chillingly similar” to the 1995 massacre.
The Bosnian war, which started in 1992, pitted the country’s three main ethnic factions — Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims — against each other after the break-up of Yugoslavia. More than 100,000 people were killed in the conflict before a peace deal was brokered in 1995.Pakistan on Friday called on the United Nations to continue monitoring and documenting human rights abuses being committed by India in occupied Kashmir.
