ISLAMABAD: Ambassador of Pakistan to Turkey, Sohail Mahmood, said that Kashmir would continue to haunt the conscience of humanity unless the continuing unspeakable atrocities in Occupied Kashmir are immediately stopped and until a just and durable solution to the longstanding Kashmir dispute is found.
In his article published in Turkish newspapers, the envoy highlighted the miseries of the Kashmiri people and drew attention of the world community to play their due role to help resolve Kashmir dispute in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions.
The ambassador quoted a New York Times report narrating the ordeal of an eight-year-old Kashmiri boy, Asif Sheikh, who underwent third eye surgery in a Srinagar hospital.
Asif Sheikh is one of the hundreds of victims of indiscriminate use of pellet gunshots employed by military forces in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir to quell the latest intifada which intensified on July 8 with the extrajudicial killing of a Kashmiri youth leader, Burhan Muzaffar Wani.
Defying the curfew, hundreds of thousands of Kashmiris poured into the streets after his funeral in a spontaneous outburst of anger against the cold-blooded methods being used by the occupying forces.
The response to this Kashmiri outburst of anger, grief and frustration was again characteristic of what they have faced under occupation for decades.
Live ammunition, pellet gunshots and teargas were directed indiscriminately at protestors and for that matter anyone in the vicinity, including bystanders and onlookers like young Asif Sheikh.
They were baton charged and dragged on the streets. Ambulances transporting those injured were stopped and attacked. Hospital and clinics providing medical aid were raided and medical staff and doctors harassed. Kashmiri leaders were arrested or put under detention. Media and independent human rights observers were denied access to the region.
For months Jammu & Kashmir has remained a virtual black hole under a crippling curfew. Meanwhile, India’s relentless drive to quash the will of the Kashmiri people since July 8 has resulted in the death of over 150 Kashmiris and injuries to a staggering 15,000 others.
There have been over 700 victims of severe eye injuries from the use of pellet guns alone, many of them as young as Asif Sheikh. Most of these victims will never see the light of the day again being permanently blinded.
Others will spend their remaining lives living under the shadows of impaired vision and psychological trauma. On September 17, 11-year-old Nasir Shafi’s pellet-ridden body was found in Harwan.
Nasir Shafi had gone missing a day earlier when protestors from his village were chased by Indian security forces. After witnessing the tell tale signs of yet another unspeakable atrocity, thousands of Kashmiris again took to the streets for the young boy’s funeral despite the curfew.
The pictures of crimson-colored, blood-drenched eyes of victims and wailing mothers over the coffins of their young sons are enough to send shudders down one’s spine. Yet this is a mere glimpse of what the Kashmiris have endured under occupation for almost 70 years now merely for asking for what they had been promised not only by the United Nations Security Council but also by India itself -- the right to self-determination.
Since 1990 an estimated 94,000 Kashmiris have lost their lives in their just struggle, many in the custody of the occupying forces. Thousands of mass graves have been discovered. More than 10,000 women have been raped and molested.
Still, according to the Amnesty International, not a single member of the security forces deployed in Jammu and Kashmir over the past 25 years has been tried for human rights violations in a civilian court. The draconian laws enforced by the occupying authorities provide complete impunity to the perpetrators.