Pakistan needs to take concrete steps for Kashmir’s solution: Shireen Mazari

Islamabad: Human Rights Minister Dr Shireen Mazari said Pakistan needs to keep re-emphasizing the fact that when India took the Kashmir issue to the United Nations, it did not cite Pakistan as a transgressor. Sideways, we need to move beyond the rhetoric we are addicted to. Too many Kashmiris have died and too many generations have been lost.

She said this while speaking as a Chief Guest at a Public Talk on “Human Rights Violations in Indian Occupied Kashmir”, organized by the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI) today under its Distinguished Lecture Series.

The event coincided with the celebrations marking International Human Rights Day which signifies the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN General Assembly in 1948.

Addressing the event, Dr Mazari said “we need to move forward beyond rhetoric and take concrete steps for the solution of Kashmir issue adding that too many generations and innocent people in IOK have been suffered and lost their lives for the attainment of plebiscite which lies at the centre of UNSC resolutions.

“Presently, the violation by Indian forces have broken all bounds. Never before were women and children targeted with pellet guns or dragged along the streets of Srinagar she said. She lamented that the Pakistani Government should have allowed a committee to investigate the Pakistani side of Kashmir. “

She labelled this as a major blunder.

Outlining the path that the Pakistani Government should adopt, she said that in line with the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Report - a major development in itself - Islamabad needs to establish an inquiry commission on an urgent basis.

An area which has been neglected is the abuse and violence against women in Indian Occupied Kashmir, and international women organizations need to be approached in this regard.