Indian army targeting unarmed Kashmiri youth, says Qureshi

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Monday said Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) was undergoing worst form of state-terrorism as occupation forces targeted the unarmed Kashmiri youth in fake encounters.

The foreign minister said Indian occupation forces were spreading fear among innocent residents of IIOJK by naming them as “terrorists”.

“In order to throw dust in the eyes of the world, these victims are presented as terrorists and false cases are registered against them,” he said, in a statement issued by his media cell. Qureshi said now the world had realised India’s ill intentions, which was resulting in weakening of India’s control on the occupied valley.

Meanwhile, the government of Pakistan on Monday expressed its “deep concern” over the deteriorating health conditions of incarcerated Kashmiri leaders who have been put behind the bars by the Indian government. In an official statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said that Pakistan is “deeply concerned over the continued incarceration and deteriorating health conditions of Kashmiri leaders, including the founding leader of the Kashmiri organisation “Dukhtaran-i-Millat” and the “Iron Lady of Kashmir.” The statement said that Asiya Andrabi, the leader and founder of the Jammu & Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party, Shabbir Ahmed Shah, and other prominent leaders like Yasin Malik, Masarat Alam Bhat, and Mohammad Ashraf Sehraie are languishing under squalid conditions in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in the infamous Tihar and other jails.

The government of Pakistan stated that several other senior Kashmiri leaders, including Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, remain under house arrest. “These Kashmiri leaders have been illegally arrested over malicious, false and fabricated charges by the Indian government through invoking draconian laws promulgated in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IIOJK),” the statement read.

It added that the incarceration and maltreatment of Kashmiri leaders in jails solely on the basis of their political ideology and struggle against the illegal Indian occupation of their land is a “true reflection of the extremist mindset of the RSS-BJP regime which has no respect for the human rights of the Kashmiri people.”

“Pakistan calls upon the international community, particularly the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and human rights and humanitarian organisations, to take notice of the Indian government’s inhumane treatment of the Kashmiri leaders and raise its voice for their immediate release from illegal Indian detention,” the statement concluded.