Sharafat Kazmi Islamabad
Pakistan has again called upon the Indian government to rescind all its illegal actions and take measures for resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in line with the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions.
Addressing the weekly news briefing on Thursday, Foreign Office Spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said the independent voices continue to raise concerns on the gross human rights violations in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
He said the European Parliament’s Sub-Committee on Human Rights has discussed the serious human rights situation and continued crackdown on civil society and human rights activists in IIOJK and India.
The spokesperson said the UK Parliamentarians have once again condemned human and civil rights abuses of Kashmiri people through military occupation of the region.
He said the Forum for Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir has published a report; covering human rights violations in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir from August 2020 to January 2021.
The Editors Guild of India has once again expressed its shock on regular detention of editors of Kashmir based publications by the Indian security forces.
He said the EGI has underscored that there are scores of journalists who are experiencing this new normal where they can be hauled up by the security forces for writing anything that goes contrary to the government narrative that peace has returned to the valley.
He said, “There is strong evidence pointing towards the involvement of Indian hostile agencies in the abduction of Lt Col (retd) Muhammad Habib Zahir, including involvement of Indian nationals who reportedly received him at Lumbini, made his hotel reservations and booked his tickets.
” he added, “The website that Habib Zahir was contacted from was also operated from India.”
Moreover, he maintained that the Indian media reports and tweets from Indian personnel corroborate the evidence that he was in their custody.
“At our request, the government of Nepal constituted a special team to look into the incident but there has been no progress in the matter so far,” the spokesperson said.
He highlighted that Pakistan has repeatedly called upon the government of India to cooperate and assist in locating Habib Zahir, but have not received any positive response as yet.
Chaudhri added that the abduction was a serious transnational crime that is in sharp contravention to international law, especially human rights and humanitarian law.
“Moreover, it is also in grave violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Access as well as the 2008 bilateral agreement on consular access between Pakistan and India.
” He further said that Pakistan will continue to make all-out efforts to locate and bring back Habib.
