Brussels :(RASHEED AHMED) Chairman Kashmir Council Europe (KC-EU) Mr Ali Raza Syed has urged the
international community to take serious notice of the severe violations of human
rights in Indian Held Kashmir (IHK).
In Brussels while commenting on a latest investigative report on
human rights abuses in IHK, he said, international community specially UN and
EU should send their fact finding missions to the Indian occupied territory of
Kashmir.
It is important to mention that in their fresh comprehensive report Association of
Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) and the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil
Society (JKCCS) titled Torture: Indian State’s Instrument of Control in Indian
Administered Jammu and Kashmir said, torture is used as a matter of policy by the
Indian State in Jammu and Kashmir in a systematic and institutional manner, as all
the institutions of the State be it legislature, executive, judiciary and armed forces
form a part.
Using 432 case studies, the report charts out trends and patterns, targets,
perpetrators, sites, contexts and impacts of torture in Jammu and Kashmir as
disclosing, the widespread use of torture continues unabatedly in Jammu and
Kashmir. Giving an example, the report said, as recently as 19 March 2019, a 29
year old school principal, Rizwan Pandith was killed due to torture after being
illegally detained in the Cargo camp of the Special Operations Group of Jammu
and Kashmir Police.
Categorizing the case studies, the report establishes that the vast number of
methods of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or
punishment, as set out in the UN OHCHR Istanbul Protocol, have been and
continue to be perpetrated in Jammu and Kashmir.
Chairman Kashmir Council EU said, according to the report Indian security forces
using different ruthless methods of the torture including stripping the detainees
naked, beating with sticks, iron rods or leather belts, roller treatment,
waterboarding, dunking detainees’ head in water, hanging from the ceiling mostly
upside down, burning of the body with hot objects, solitary confinement, sleep
deprivation and sexual torture.
Ali Raza Syed said, this is strongly deplorable that as the report said, torture
victims are civilians include women, students and juveniles, political activists,
human rights activists and journalists and many of them have been died during the
torture.
He appealed to the European Union and UN specially United Nations High
Commission on Human Rights and international human rights organizations like
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to pressurize India to stop human
rights violation and provide right to self determination to the people of Jammu and
Kashmir.
In his statement, Chairman Kashmir Council EU also paid rich tributes to
martyred hurriyat leaders Mirwaiz Molvi Muhammad Farooq and Khawaja Abdul
Ghani Lone as well as victims of Hawal massacre on their martyrdom
anniversaries falling on Tuesday.
It is also important to mention that Kashmir Council Europe (KC-EU) will
arranged a camp in Brussels, the capital of Belgium on Tuesday for its one million
signature campaign for solidarity with the oppressed people of Indian occupied
Kashmir.
Basic aim of the EU based signature drive is to collect a million signatures in
order to highlight the conflict of Kashmir and pressurize New Delhi to stop the
human rights abuses perpetrated by the Indian forces in the Indian held Kashmir
(IHK).
The collection of one million signatures will be presented in the shape of the
document to the ‘European Parliament’s human rights committee’ in order to raise
the issue of violations of human rights in IHK as well as issue of right to self-
determination of people of Jammu and Kashmir.