The All Parties Hurriyat Conference has urged the United Nations and other international human rights organizations, including Asia Watch and Amnesty International, to put pressure on India to release all Kashmiri political detainees languishing in jails of India and the occupied territory.
According to Kashmir Media Service, APHC spokesman Advocate Abdul Rashid Minhas in a statement issued in Srinagar expressed serious concern over the continued illegal detention of thousands of people, including APHC leaders, Ulema, journalists, youth, activists and human rights defenders.
He said that illegal detentions and other repressive tactics by the occupation authorities could not stop the Kashmiri people from continuing their struggle for securing their right to self-determination.
It maintained that subjecting people to torture, wanton arrests, life-time imprisonments, and killings of innocent Kashmiris by the Indian forces’ personnel is an illustration of the ongoing serious situation persisting in occupied Jammu and Kashmir. Modi regime’s anti-Muslim mindset and its colonial measures imposed one after another in Kashmir also indicate clearly what is in store for the Kashmiri people in the coming days, it added.
The spokesman expressed deep concern over the plight of Kashmiri detainees, including APHC Chairman Masarat Aalam Butt, Muhammad Yasin Malik, Shabbir Ahmad Shah, Aasiya Andrabi, Naheeda Nasreen, Fehmeeda Sofi, Nayeem Ahmad Khan, Mohammad Ayaz Akbar, Peer Saifullah, Merajuddin Kalwal, Farooq Ahmad Dar, Shahidul Islam, Mushtaq-ul-Islam, Molvi Bashir Ahmed Irfani, Bilal Siddiqi, Ameer Hamza, Dr Hameed Fayaz, Abdul Ahad Parra, Zaffar Akbar Butt, Umar Adil Dar, Dr Muhammad Shafi Shariati, Ghulam Qadir Butt, Noor Muhammad Fayaz, Muhammad Yousuf Falahi, Dr Muhammad Qasim Fakhtoo, Syed Shahid Yousuf, Syed Shakeel Yousuf, Muhammad Rafiq Ganai, Hayat Ahmed Butt, Zahoor Ahmed Butt, Maulana Sarjan Barkati, human rights defenders Khurrum Parvez and, journalists Aasif Sultan, Irfan Majeed and Sajad Gul.
He also urged the Indian media fraternity and civil society to put pressure on the Indian government to resolve all disputes with Pakistan, particularly the Jammu and Kashmir conflict, through talks. He said the dream for peace and prosperity in the region will remain elusive unless the grave issue of Jammu and Kashmir is resolved as per aspirations of the Kashmiri people.—KMS
