UN action, third-party protection for Kashmiris demanded

Islamabad: The Jammu and Kashmir Council for Human Rights (JKCHR) strongly condemns the midnight missile attacks on Bahawalpur in Pakistan and Kotli and Muzaffarabad in the territory of the State of Jammu and Kashmir currently administered by Pakistan and India as trust areas under international law, says a press release.

The deliberate targeting of civilian populations, including women, breastfeeding infants, and minor children, as well as the forced deportation of their mothers, who are citizens of the disputed territory, constitutes a grave breach of humanitarian norms and international law.

These acts amount to war crimes and demand immediate accountability. Choosing the territories of Jammu and Kashmir - in this case, Azad Kashmir - as the theatre of military retaliation by India is unacceptable and unlawful. These areas have been under international consideration since January 1948, falling within the purview of Article 35 of the United Nations Charter. India’s military actions have breached the conditionality of its presence in Jammu and Kashmir and violated the protections guaranteed under the UN template for resolving the dispute.

JKCHR reiterates that the Government of India should have accepted the Pakistani proposal for a neutral, independent, and transparent investigation into the recent incident in Pahalgam, where victims included Muslims and local residents in a region recognised as one of the most militarized zones in the world. JKCHR calls upon the Indian public and civil society to restrain the Government of India from perpetuating a dangerous theatre of retaliation that uses the people and territory of Kashmir as expendable subjects in a manufactured narrative of control and violence.