Pakistan to present dossier before UNHRC on Indian atrocities in IoK

GENEVA: Pakistan has prepared a dossier to be presented before the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday pertaining to Indian atrocities in occupied Kashmir.

The 115-page dossier addresses the grave human rights violations along with pictures and names of those who have been victims of Indian atrocities.

“India’s imposition of strict curfew, detention of the entire political leadership, large-scale arrests of thousands of innocent Kashmiris coupled with extremely harsh suppression of all fundamental human rights amidst the full freeze on landline, mobile and internet communications is fast leading to 'major humanitarian crisis' for more than 8 million people in the Kashmir Valley & partially for about 6 million in the Jammu Region. Waking up the world’s conscience is imperative to prevent the Indian Occupation Forces from affecting an unrelenting massacre, while the supplies of food, medicine and other necessities of life are deliberately withheld,” stated the dossier.

At the beginning, the document mentioned that India has denied basic human rights to the people of occupied Kashmir for decades, but the recent situation in wake of abrogation of Article 370 is alarming.

Statistically summarising the human rights violations from January 1989 until August 2019, the dossier put the total number of killings in the valley at 100,178.

According to the breakdown, custodial killings stood at 8,532 while the pellet gun injuries were 3,800.

During the time period, 164,931 civilians were arrested and 22,899 women were widowed, with the number of orphans being 107,758.

Moreover, 11,107 women were gang-raped/molested while the number of structures (houses etc) destroyed or damaged were 109,247.

The dossier also shed light on the number of arrests of political leaders in the valley.

“According to Kashmir Caged Report, at least 600 political leaders and civil society activists are under arrest. There is no clear information on what laws are invoked to arrest them, or where they are being held. A very large number of political leaders (exact figures not known) have been placed under house arrest. “

As for the torture cells, the report stated that the Indian occupation forces have kept over 471 torture centres in the IoK and as per a 2017 report, there were ‘about 400,000 people who had been tortured from a moderate to severe degree’.

The dossier has also mentioned a list, naming those martyred and victims of pellet gun injuries in the occupied valley.

The document also included the letters from UK and US parliamentarians, and international organisations, condemning the Indian human rights violations.