Pakistan urges UN to probe Indian atrocities

Envoy says Indian forces unleashed reign of terror

UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has renewed its call for the United Nations to set up a ‘commission of inquiry’ — the world body's highest-level probe — to investigate grave human rights violations in the Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK).

The probe was recommended by the first-ever UN report on human rights situation in IOK issued by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on June 14.

"We endorse the report’s recommendations for a UN Inquiry Commission to be constituted to investigate and redress the gross violations of human rights of the Kashmiris," Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi told the General Assembly's Third Committee, which deals with social, humanitarian and cultural questions.



Speaking at a debate on Right of Self-Determination, she reaffirmed Pakistan's support to the Kashmiris until they exercised that right through an UN-supervised plebiscite.

The Pakistani envoy said Kashmiri people's aspirations for self-determination would have been fulfilled decades ago had India not employed a brutal policy of repression to deny their right, promised to them by the UN Security Council as well as by the governments of India and Pakistan.

Ambassador Lodhi said, "India continues to hold the future of millions of people hostage. Its forces have unleashed a reign of terror to crush the will of the Kashmiris people to free themselves from occupation.

"We would like to reaffirm that the Jammu and Kashmir dispute will remain on the UN agenda until the Kashmiri people are allowed to exercise their will, according to the agreed method prescribed by the Security Council – a plebiscite under the auspices of the United Nations.

"It is unfortunate that despite clear injunctions of international law and morality, millions continue to live under alien domination and foreign occupation.”



She further highlighted that the human rights violations of Kashmiri people had been repeatedly documented by independent human rights observers, the most significant among them being the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who issued a report in June on the situation in Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

"We endorse the report’s recommendations that a UN Inquiry Commission be constituted to investigate and redress the gross violations of the human rights of the Kashmiri people," said the ambassador, adding that she was deeply concerned at the rise of racism, xenophobia and intolerance, and rejected them in the strongest possible terms.

"We believe such divisive forces pose a grave threat to international peace and security and can undo the work of peacemakers by disrupting momentum for peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial cooperation," she said.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 1^st, 2018.