New Delhi's 'draconian measures' have led to shortages of food, medicine, says permanent envoy
UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dr Maleeha Lodhi on Thursday updated United Nations Security Council (UNSC) President Joanna Wronecka on the deepening crisis in Indian-Occupied Kashmir.
Ambassador Lodhi also briefed two senior UN humanitarian officials on the acute suffering of the people languishing under a military lockdown in the occupied territory for the past 25 days, according to informed sources.
She told UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock that over 14 million Kashmiris were facing a grim situation since August 5, when India annexed occupied Kashmir, sparking off the crisis.
New Delhi's "draconian measures", she said, have led to shortages of food, medicine and essential supplies for over a million Kashmiri people, with no end in sight. And she told the UN officials that this was only the tip of the iceberg.
“The humanitarian situation will become clearer once restrictions are lifted by the Indian authorities. This is not a crisis waiting to happen,” she said. “There is an even greater crisis waiting to erupt in the occupied territory,” Ambassador Lodhi said.
During a meeting with Unicef's Deputy Executive Director Hannan Sulieman, the Pakistani envoy said that systematic human rights violations were being committed by Indian security forces. “Young boys are being abducted from their homes and being tortured and women and girls were being sexually harassed, molested and dishonoured,” she added.
“Sufferings of the Kashmiri children does not see any sign of abetment,” she told the Unicef official. “Hundreds of children have lost their eyesights due to the pellet gun shots fired by the Indian occupying forces, including children as young as 4-year olds,” she said, adding that they not only lost their sights but with it their futures and dreams too.
She referred to reports of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for 2018 and 2019 that said that children were being arrested under the Public Security Act (PSA) and Armed Forces Special Protection Act (AFSPA) in complete neglect to the International human rights obligations enshrined in Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Convention on the Rights of the Child.
“Sexual violence in Jammu and Kashmir covers a range of crimes, including harassment, abuse, molestation, abduction and rape, and seems to be rife in the state,” Ambassador Lodhi said.
According to a report published by a human rights NGO in India, 72 of the 318 children killed between 2003 and 2017 were reportedly girls, or nearly 23%. Girls have also been subjected to sexual violence, with rape having been employed as "a weapon of war by the state in order to enforce collective punishment and to instil fear among the populace.
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