Exhibition highlights abuses in Kashmir

An exhibition highlighting human rights abuses in Occupied Kashmir was inaugurated to commemorate ‘International Human Rights Day’ at the Rawalpindi Arts Council on Thursday.

“Humanity is buried in occupied Kashmir and India has turned the ‘Paradise Valley’ into hell,” said Mushaal Hussein Mullick, wife of Hurriyat leader Yasin Malik, and Chairperson of Peace and Culture Organisation. “The International Human Rights Day is observed every year around the world. However, the silence of the international community on human rights violations in Occupied Kashmir and Palestine - which is also on the UN agenda - is a matter of concern,” she added.

She further said that the world remained silent on the legal action taken by India on August 5, 2019. “A curfew was imposed in the valley, and Kashmiris were kept under house arrest, but then the world faced a pandemic that confined the whole world to its homes,” she added.

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The chairperson said that India had made the world a disinformation lab for occupied Kashmir. “Bipin Rawat used to say that Kashmiris would not be given the bodies of their dead. Today, DNA tests are being done to identify Bipin Rawat's body,” she added.

She pleaded on behalf of Kashmiris, and called on international bodies to stop human rights violations in occupied Kashmir. In the end, she thanked the arts council for presenting the Kashmir issue in full.

Arts Council Director Waqar Ahmed said, “Sooner or later, independence was the destiny of the Kashmiris and they cannot be kept as a slave for long.” Three generations of Kashmiris were martyred while fighting against India, he added.

However, he revealed, the intensity of the independence movement in Kashmir had not diminished. He added, “We, as Pakistan, will always bring the Kashmir issue before the world and expose India's nefarious intentions.”

Published in The Express Tribune, December 10^th, 2021.