Altaf Hamid Rao.
Islamabad/ MIRPUR (AJK), (Parliament Times) : Veteran rights activist and chairman Kashmir Institute of International Relations (KIIR) Altaf Hussain Wani has urged the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to make India accountable for the heinous war crimes its forces have been committing against people in the occupied territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
Addressing the 48th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council Mr. Wani while speaking on behalf of World Muslim Congress via video link welcomed the madam commissioner’s remarks on the dire human rights situation in Indian occupied Kashmir.
The KIIR chief, however, expressed his dismay over the Council’s silence and not supporting the call of high commissioner for establishing a commission of inquiry to investigate human rights violations in IoK. He said that the silence on the part of council has encouraged the government of Indian and its forces to continue its military might against innocent habitat of Indian occupied Kashmir.
Referring to the use of repressive state apparatus by the Indian state, he said, “Arbitrary detentions, extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances are part of an ongoing pattern of violations of human rights by Indian Occupation forces”.
About the worsening rights situation in the restive region, he said, “With restrictions on freedom of opinion and expression and other fundamental freedoms, Indian government has snatched the right to mourn and bury their loved ones at their will”.
Briefing the council about the tragic death and forcible burial of the senior resistance leader Syed Ali Geelani, he said, “The iconic leader of Kashmir Syed Ali Shah Geelani breathed his last on September 01, while remaining in house arrest for last 11year”. The Indian Occupation forces, he said, barged into his residence, manhandled the bereaved family members, snatched his dead body, and buried it in a nearby grave yard, without consent of his family.
The Indian Occupation forces, he said, denied SAS Geelani’s family and his followers to arrange a dignified funeral for the deceased leader. The only crime of the deceased was that he demanded UN Recognized right to self-determination