ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The Foreign Office has said that India is violating numerous UN Security Council resolutions and international laws by attempting to abrogate Article 35-A of its Constitution, aimed at changing the demography of Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) to preempt the outcome of any future plebiscite.
“Underhanded Indian nefarious designs of this nature are a complete violation of the numerous UNSC Resolutions and international law,” the Foreign Office Spokesperson Dr Muhammad Faisal said in Islamabad on Thursday while holding weekly media briefing.
The Spokesperson said that despite rampant Indian state terrorism, Kashmiris in IOK observed a complete strike against Indian attempts to abrogate Article 35-A.
Dr Faisal further said that as a result of the brutal use of force by the Indian occupation forces during last week, 12 innocent Kashmiris embraced shahadat.
The Foreign Office Spokesperson said that the Hurriyat leadership remains incarcerated while their offices are raided regularly on trumped up charges in an attempt to intimidate them. He said that political prisoners under PSA are being shifted to prisons outside IOK to exert additional psychological pressure on the families and to keep them away from scrutiny.
“We strongly condemn the illegal detention and shifting of Kashmiri women including Syeda Aasiya Andrabi, Nahida Nasreen and Fahmida Sofi from Mandoli Jail to notorious Tihar Jail in New Delhi,” he said.
The Spokesperson said “We also express our deep concerns over the health condition of political prisoners including Shabir Ahmad Shah, Masara tAlam Butt, Nayeem Ahmad Khan, Mohammad Aiyaz Akbar, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Peer Saifullah, Mehrajudin Kalwal, Farooq Ahmad Dar, Ghulam Muhammad Khan Sopori and hundreds of Hurriyat leaders and activists in different jails and interrogation centers.”
Furthermore, Dr Faisal said that journalists especially foreign journalists are arbitrarily prevented access to IOK to stop them from witnessing the rapidly deteriorating situation on ground.
“This is a desperate attempt to cover the truth about the humanitarian emergency and barbaric human rights violations being committed by Indian occupation forces,” he added.