Incarcerated senior leader of All Parties Hurriyat Conference, Shabbir Ahmed Shah, has urged the international community to take cognizance of the fast deteriorating human rights situation in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
Shabbir Ahmed Shah in his message from New Delhi’s infamous Tihar jail said that the people of IIOJK had been facing the worst Indian state terrorism for the last over seven decades.
He said India, which claims to be the world’s largest democracy has usurped Kashmiris’ fundamental right, the right to self-determination, which is tantamount to an outrageous assault and an infringement on the essence of the UN charter. He maintained that India’s continuous denial to grant the Kashmiris their birth right had prevented the habitants of occupied territory from enjoying the fruits of liberty, experience of dignity and full benefits of freedom as enshrined in the UN charter, the Geneva Convention and other core international human rights treaties.
The APHC leader said that instead of reflecting a genuine desire to grant the Kashmiri people their promised right, the Indian rulers over the past 75 years tried to crush the Kashmiris’ legitimate struggle for right to self-determination by using its military might. For that matter, India deployed massive troops in the disputed territory whose number has now swelled to over one million, he said. These trigger-happy troops operating under the protection of draconian laws are resorting to extra-judicial killings, detentions, massacres, targeted killings, sieges, torture, enforced disappearances, rape and molestation of women, to intimidate the Kashmiri people into submission, he deplored.
Shabbir Shah said since 5th August 2019, IIOJK has been turned into a hell for its inhabitants who have been denied every right. “The suffocating conditions in which Kashmiris are forced to live were a greatest challenge for the world’s conscience. Kashmir is the only place in the world where humans live without human rights,” he said.
The APHC leader urged the international community to take cognizance of the Indian state terrorism in IIOJK and impress upon India to resolve the lingering Kashmir dispute in accordance with the Kashmiris’ aspirations for ensuring durable peace in the region.—KMS
