MUZAFFARABAD:
Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan has called on the international community and the United Nations to help stop the most “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment of the people of Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJ&K) by the occupation forces,
“We fully agree with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ statement that torturers must never be allowed to get away with their crimes and systems that enable torture should be dismantled or transformed,” he said in a video message posted on the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture observed around the globe on Friday.
The AJK president said that torture is a crime against humanity and it is prohibited by international law and all religions. “Yet this crime is committed every day by the Indian forces and authorities in the occupied territory, most brutally and systematically.”
He appealed to the UN not to generalize and blur the focus on torture where it is widespread. In occupied Kashmir, he said, torture is most widespread and most cruel.
“Torture has been committed by the BJP-RSS regime by reoccupying and colonizing Jammu and Kahsmir against the will of its 14 million people, dividing their state into two parts and enforcing decrees whereby the entire territory is now ruled by a foreign capital, Delhi.”
While lambasting the Modi-led government, President Masood said: “As we mark this day today, Kashmiri young men are being hunted down and killed in cold blood in fake encounters, protesters are being blinded and sexual assault is being used as a weapon of war.”
Kashmiris, he went on to say, are being deprived of their homeland by bringing Hindus from all over India and settling them in the occupied territory through new domicile rules.
“Deprived of their permanent residency, Kashmiris are deprived of their jobs, livelihood, businesses and land. Systematically, the demography of the contested valley is permanently altered.”
The Prime Minister urges the international community to hold India accountable for atrocities in IOJ&K
The AJK President said what India is doing in the occupied region is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention, ICC Statute and International Humanitarian Law.
Referring to the arbitrary arrest of political leaders and political activists, he said thousands of political prisoners – illegally imprisoned – are being subjected to the vicious torture that in many cases leads to death and disability.
President Masood demanded the immediate release of political prisoners in Tihar Jail in India – Yasin Malik, Asiya Indrabi, Shabbir Shah – and Syed Ali Geelani and other Hurriyet leaders – hundreds of them locked up in cramped jails.
About 13,000 boys and children, as young as 10, are trapped in concentration camps where they are tortured and brainwashed, he said, as he called on the international community led by the United Nations to play its part in their release.
He also made a demand that India should be asked to repeal all draconian laws empowering occupation forces to commit crimes with impunity.
“Kashmiris are citizens of planet Earth. Listen to their SOS cries. Save their bodies; save their souls. Silence is also a crime while such massive torture is happening right before our eyes.”
