London,(PR) : The Jammu and Kashmir Council for Human Rights (JKCHR) strongly condemns the midnight missile attacks on Bahawalpur in Pakistan and Kotli and Muzaffarabad in the
territory of the State of Jammu and Kashmir currently administered by Pakistan and India as trust areas under international law.
The deliberate targeting of civilian populations, including women, breastfeeding infants,
and minor children, as well as the forced deportation of their mothers, who are citizens of
the disputed territory, constitutes a grave breach of humanitarian norms and international law.
These acts amount to war crimes and demand immediate accountability.
Choosing the territories of Jammu and Kashmir — in this case, Azad Kashmir — as the
theatre of military retaliation by India is unacceptable and unlawful. These areas have been under international consideration since January 1948, falling within the purview of Article 35 of the United Nations Charter. India’s military actions have breached the conditionality of its presence in Jammu and Kashmir and violated the protections guaranteed under the UN template for resolving the dispute.
JKCHR reiterates that the Government of India should have accepted the Pakistani
proposal for a neutral, independent, and transparent investigation into the recent incident in Pahalgam, where victims included Muslims and local residents in a region recognized as one of the most militarized zones in the world.
We call upon the Indian public and civil society to restrain the Government of India from
perpetuating a dangerous theatre of retaliation that uses the people and territory of Kashmir as expendable subjects in a manufactured narrative of control and violence.
We urge the United Nations Security Council to assume its positive duty in Kashmir, in
accordance with the binding commitments made under UN supervision, and call upon the UN Secretary-General to invoke Article 99 of the UN Charter to address this escalating threat
to international peace and security.
JKCHR further calls on the Government of Canada to revive and advance its proposal for a third-party protection mechanism for the people of Jammu and Kashmir, until such time as they are able to exercise their right to self-determination through a free and fair plebiscite under UN supervision.
We categorically condemn the Indian Government’s ongoing efforts to weaponize religion
against minorities and to treat the people and habitat of Kashmir as a practice theatre for militarised control. This is a dangerous precedent that threatens not only regional stability
but global peace and human rights standards.