The Pakistan Foreign Office has protested the death of Pakistani prisoner Muhammad Ali Hussain, held at Kot Bhalwal, in Indian Occupied Kashmir since 2006. India had claimed that Muhammad Hussain was allegedly involved in smuggling weapons into India and he was being taken to a smuggling site when an encounter occurred after he grabbed a rifle from a police officer and turned it on those on duty at the prison. This sounds implausible in so many different ways. Hussain, held since 2006, appears to have no record of violence, and no real evidence has been presented of his ‘militancy’.
Last year another prisoner from Pakistan, held at a jail in Occupied Kashmir, was also killed in a so-called encounter. These extrajudicial encounters, targeting both Kashmiris and Pakistanis, occur far too often in this territory, which has turned into a land of violence and misery for those who oppose the Indian occupation of what was a state which till 2019 held at least partial autonomy. The extrajudicial killings simply show, as we have seen before, that the Modi government and groups affiliated to it have no respect for human life and no respect for human rights.
The question is why the world will not take up the matter more gravely and deal with New Delhi. The reasons lie in New Delhi’s significance as a power in the region and potentially in the world. But this cannot be an excuse to commit human rights violations of this nature There have now been far too many such outrages in Kashmir. While Pakistan has protested consistently and this time called in the Indian chargé d’ affaires in Islamabad to put forward its protest, other Muslim countries at the very least also need to raise their voice to create a louder chorus of protest. So do other nations which claim to stand with rights and justice. Time and time again Pakistan has been called upon to improve its human rights record and to deal with those who are suspected of acts against the state in a manner which is acceptable to the world. It is time more pressure was exerted on India, so that more Muhammas Hussain’s are not cruelly gunned down by the police, or more Kashmiri children don’t have to suffer the indignity and misery of growing up in an occupied land.