ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Pakistan has expressed deep concern over the continued incarceration and deteriorating health conditions of Kashmiri leaders.
Kashmiri leaders including the founding leader of Kashmiri organization “Dukhtaran-i-Millat” and the “Iron Lady of Kashmir” Asiya Andrabi, the leader and founder of the Jammu & Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party Shabbir Ahmed Shah, and prominent leaders such as Yasin Malik, Masarat Alam Bhat, Mohammad Ashraf Sehraie and others are languishing under squalid conditions in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in infamous Tihar and other jails.
While many other senior Kashmiri leaders including Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq remain under house arrest.
In a statement on Monday, the Foreign Office Spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said that these Kashmiri leaders have been illegally arrested over malicious, false, and fabricated charges by the Indian Government through invoking draconian laws promulgated in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IIOJK).
The Spokesperson said that imprisonment and torturing of Kashmiri leaders on the basis of their political ideology and struggle against illegal Indian occupation is a true reflection of the extremist mindset of the RSS-BJP regime which has no respect for the human rights of the Kashmiri people.
“Pakistan calls upon the International Community, particularly the United Nations, ICRC, and human rights and humanitarian organizations, to take notice of the Indian government’s inhuman treatment of the Kashmiri leaders and raise its voice for their immediate release from illegal Indian detention,” the Spokesperson said.