Pakistan seeks UNSC session on Kashmir siege

FM Qureshi, in a letter, points to serious threat India’s aggressive posture poses to peace and security in South Asia

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan has formally requested for a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting to consider the consequences of “India’s military siege in the Occupied Jammu and Kashmir and the serious threat India’s aggressive posture poses to the peace and security in South Asia”.

For this purpose, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi wrote a letter to the president of UNSC just on the eve of first anniversary of India's illegal annexation of the disputed territory, said an official handout of foreign office on Tuesday.

The readout says that in the wake of one year of India’s illegal and unilateral measures of August 5, 2019 in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has once again written to the president of the UN Security Council sharing additional information on India’s continuing massive violations of human rights, its attempt to change demography, and its escalating ceasefire violations and rhetoric against Pakistan which together pose a threat to regional and international peace and security.

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In his letter, the foreign minister highlighted how, through a combination of military siege in Kashmir, internet and communication blackout, imprisoned Kashmiri political leaders, and abducted Kashmiri youth, India is seeking to camouflage ongoing systematic torture, extra-judicial killings, and imposition of collective punishment on Kashmiris.

“These atrocities epitomise India’s brutality in suppressing Kashmiris’ resistance against Indian occupation for over seven decades.”

Pakistan also circulated two papers as official documents of the Security Council: one, on the legal aspects of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, and the second, on India’s violations of human rights in the IIOJK. The legal document apprises the Council members and the world community of the legitimacy of the Kashmiris’ demand for self-determination.

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Likewise, the document on India’s human rights violations will be a permanent and damning testimony to India’s long record of oppression and serious crimes against the Kashmiri people.

The foreign minister emphasised that India’s intensified ceasefire violations along the Line of Control (LoC) and its belligerent posture towards Pakistan pose a threat to peace and security. He urged the Council to strengthen the UN Military Observers Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) to enable it to report fully and accurately on the gravity of the security environment in Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.