ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Pakistan has told the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights that India’s baseless allegations are in line with its policy of interfering in the internal affairs of neighbouring countries and flouting the international norms governing inter-state relations.
While having interactive dialogue with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein at 35th Session of Human Rights Council in Geneva, Pakistan told that consistent with its track record of interfering and harbouring terrorism in other countries, India continues to interfere in the internal affairs of Pakistan.
The UN High Commissioner was told that India uses incongruous tactics of blaming Pakistan as a diversion from addressing gross human rights violations in Kashmir.
It was informed that the latest wave of unrest in Indian Occupied Kashmir is a result of decades of systematic state sponsored terrorism committed by India in order to crush the struggle of Kashmiris for the exercise of their right to self-determination.
The High Commissioner for Human Rights was told that Pakistan has shown great restrain to comment on the gross human rights violations committed by despotic Indian government in the rest of India and only focused on Kashmir considering its peculiar status of being internationally recognized dispute to which there are three parties: the people of Kashmir, Pakistan and India. It was told that India’s calling of Kashmir as its integral part is another twisting of fact and another lie in front of the Human Rights Council.
It was told that India is seriously deluding itself if it believes that the world is blind to Indian barbarities in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir. It was told that more than 268 brutally killed and around 20,000 seriously injured and scores of hundreds including children and women blinded – these figures are testament to the inhumane reality the innocent Kashmiris in Indian occupied Kashmir are forced to suffer at the hands of Indian occupation forces since the last seven decades.
The UN High Commissioner was told that Indian attempts to term the legitimate freedom struggle of Kashmiris for the right to self-determination as terrorism is absolutely absurd.
Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein was told that the reality is that despite use of brutal force by Indian forces, each death in Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir is mourned by millions and only strengthens the resolve of the Kashmiri people. The Indian government needs to acknowledge this reality and accept the demand for right of self-determination of Kashmiris.
Pakistan said that the Kashmiris continue calling upon the international community for justice, and protection of their fundamental human rights. It said that we call upon Human Rights Council to urge India to immediately put an end to the mindless bloodshed in Occupied Kashmir and honour its international obligations.
In addition, the High Commissioner was apprised that Pakistan has expressed its readiness to allow the UN team sent by the High Commissioner to visit Azad Jammu and Kashmir together with the Indian Occupied Kashmir.
The UN High Commissioner was told that India has curbed freedom of expression and access to information by blocking 22 social media websites and applications in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir. It is in Indian Occupied Kashmir where mass blinding due to use of pellet guns, rapes, torture, extra-judicial killings, and continuous curfews are being reported. Therefore, we urge the High Commissioner to present the complete picture in front of the Council rather than coupling Pakistan with India while addressing the situation in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
