World Human Rights Day: Barrister Sultan urges global community to help stop human rights violations in IIOJ&K

ISLAMABAD: President Azad Jammu and Kashmir Barrister Sultan Mahmood Chaudhry has urged the international community to play its much-needed role to bring an immediate end to gross human rights violations being committed against Kashmiris by the Indian forces in the occupied territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

In a statement issued on the occasion of World Human Rights Day, referring to the fast deteriorating political and human rights situation in the IOJK, the AJK president said that it was high time that the world community should shun its duplicity and policy of indifference towards the plight of Kashmiris.

The world is celebrating Human Rights Day and 75 years of adoption of the Universal Declaration of human rights but Kashmiris are reeling under India's brutal suppression and belligerent occupation, said the AJK president.

He said that there was a dire need that the human rights watchdogs should redouble their efforts to highlight the precarious situation in the troubled region and help stop bloodshed and violence in the region. Barrister Sultan said the India's belligerent military occupation has been the major cause of unrest and human rights violations in the occupied Kashmir. Referring to the revocation of article 370 and 35-A by the Indian government in 2019, he said that since then the rights situation in the region had deteriorated to an alarming level. Indian government is trying to change the region's demography and its political landscape, he added.

Settling non-state Hindus in the IOJK, he said, was a deep-rooted conspiracy aimed at converting Muslim majority into a minority.

On the other hand, the AJK president said that after redrawing the electoral boundaries and granting additional seats to Jammu region, a stage had been set to bring a Hindu chief minister in the state.

Terming these moves as a undemocratic, illegal and unconstitutional, Barrister Sultan said that Indian government's actions were not only against the spirit of the UN charter but also the UDHR and other human rights treaties. He said that the Kashmiri people in Occupied Kashmir were struggling for their freedom.

Referring to the henious crimes being committed against Kashmiris by Indian forces, he said that the government of Pakistan should take India to the International Court of Justice to hold it accountable for the crimes its forces have been committing against the people of Kashmir. He also appealed to the international community, human rights organizations and influential world governments to stop Indian atrocities in Occupied Kashmir.