JKCHR hails Senate body’s session on Kashmir

LONDON: The Jammu and Kashmir Council for Human Rights (JKCHR) has hailed the decision of Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs to hold an in-camera meeting on January 27 on the human rights situation in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) and the plight of Kashmiri prisoners in Tihar and other jails of India.

The meeting would be held a day after when India would have celebrated her Republic Day and the people of Jammu and Kashmir would have observed it as a “Black Day”.President JKCHR Dr Syed Nazir Gilani dispatched a letter to the Senate committee chairman, Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed, saying the honourable members of the committee would set the compass correct to serve the people during the most difficult times ahead.

“We have yet to find a ‘proportionate and pointed’ response to Indian action of 5 August 2019 and her continued actions thereafter,” he said, adding: “JKCHR has been assisting families of female prisoners in paying for their air travel and accommodation to meet them in Tihar jail in Delhi.”

He urged the Senate committee not to endorse the view held by a section of the people at various levels in Pakistan that UN resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir were “history”, adding: “The jurisprudence of these resolutions is our sheet anchor and these resolutions are not a history but ‘the jurisprudence’ of Kashmir case.”

Gilani suggested the Senate committee to connect its deliberations and decisions with the rights guaranteed in the UNSC resolutions (particularly on prisoners) and with the four JKCHR documents on “Kashmiri Prisoners” received by the UN secretary general and released as UN General Assembly documents.

“We have taken up the question of all prisoners, particularly of Yasin Malik, Asiya Andrabi and Shabir Shah in these documents,” he added.He wished the Senate committee every success in this regard.