UN Report On Kashmir A Positive Development, Eye Opener For World: Analysts

Human Rights activists and Kashmir watchers have hailed the report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights that calls for "establishing a Commission of Inquiry (COI) to conduct a comprehensive independent international investigation into allegations of human rights violations in Kashmir".

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 21st Jun, 2018 ) :Human Rights activists and Kashmir watchers have hailed the report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights that calls for "establishing a Commission of Inquiry (COI) to conduct a comprehensive independent international investigation into allegations of human rights violations in Kashmir".

"There is an urgent need to address past and ongoing human rights violations and abuses and deliver justice for all people in Kashmir, who for seven decades have suffered a conflict that has claimed or ruined numerous lives," the 49-page report by the UN Human Rights Office said.

The politicians, Kashmiri leaders, renowned analysts, defence and international relations experts termed the report as a positive development which was also an eye opened for the international community.

"The political dimensions of the dispute between India and Pakistan have long been centre-stage, but this is not a conflict frozen in time. It is a conflict that has robbed millions of their basic human rights, and continues to this day to inflict untold suffering," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said.

A COI is one of the UN's highest-level probes, generally reserved for major crises like the conflict in Syria.India rejected the report terming it "fallacious, tendentious and motivated." President Azad Jammu and Kashmir Masood Khan said the report of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights chronicles consistent violations of human rights in the Indian Occupied Kashmir, especially after the martyrdom of Burhan Wani on July 8, 2016 and lists instances of excessive use of force, killings, use of pellet guns resulting in mass blinding, arbitrary arrests and detentions, tortures, sexual violence and enforced disappearances.

In a statement, Khan said the list was "the tip of the iceberg," as the High Commissioner Office was only able to remotely monitor the egregious human right violations in IOK as India refused an earlier request to a fact-finding mission to IOK.

The President said India had repeatedly rejected requests by the High Commissioner's Office to obtain access to Indian Occupied Kashmir because it wanted to hide its crimes against humanity.

President Masood Khan also endorsed the High Commissioner's recommendations to repeal the Armed Forces Special powers act 1990 (AFSPA) and amendment in India's Public Safety Act 1978 (PSA), as it has also been termed as "lawless law" by Amnesty International. "These two laws along with other draconian laws have been the principal instruments of coercion used by the Indian occupation forces", he said.

President Masood Khan called for release of all political prisoners; removal of blanket restrictions on access to internet, mobile telephone networks and ban on movement of journalists and publication of newspapers in Indian Occupied Kashmir.

Under the COI, Khan called for an independent, impartial and credible investigation into unmarked mass graves in Indian Occupied Kashmir.

In a statement, Federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit Baltistan Roshan Khurshid Barocha said the UN report on the human rights violations must be an eye opener for the international community.

She said Pakistan had been extending political, diplomatic and moral support to Kashmir brethren on all international forums.

She resolved that Pakistan would continue taking up the issue until the Kashmiri people were given their right to self-determination.

Terming the release of the UN report as a positive development, Professor Shamim Shawl, a Kashmiri leader, said the international community had raised the voice of people of Kashmir, realizing the atrocities and human rights violations by Indian forces.

She said the UN report was a question mark on Indian democratic values and the Indian brutalities and false claims were now badly exposed before the world.

She also urged the international community to pressurize India to stop Muslim genocide and human rights violations in Indian occupied Kashmir.

In his comments, renowned international relations expert Dr. Rasheed Ahmed Khan viewed that the UN had repeatedly called for inquiry into the human rights violations in Indian occupied Kashmir but India always defied the decision. He said being a habitual violator of the UN resolutions and international laws, India did not allow any international observer groups to enter into Kashmir for inquiry. Defence Analyst Abdullah Gul said Pakistan would always support the freedom movement of the people of Kashmir at every international forum.

He said the UN must probe into this matter and pressurize India to stop killing of innocent people in Occupied Kashmir.Gul said Pakistan could highlight the Kashmir issue at every international forum through different channels and proper diplomacy. He viewed that it was good omen that the European and Central Asian countries had realized the extreme human rights violations committed and unlawful killings by India in Indian occupied Kashmir.