Pakistan condemns IIOJK killings

Foreign Office said more than 636 Kashmiris embraced martyrdom since August 5, 2019

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan on Tuesday strongly condemned the extra-judicial killing of four more Kashmiris in fresh acts of state-sponsored terrorism by Indian occupational forces in Pulwama and Baramulla districts of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).

"Since India's illegal and unilateral actions of August 5, 2019, more than 636 Kashmiris have embraced martyrdom in fake 'encounters' and so-called 'cordon-and-search operations'. This year alone, 113 extra-judicial killings of Kashmiris have been recorded," the Foreign Office Spokesperson Asim Iftikhar Ahmad said in a statement.

He added that intensified military crackdowns and the rising numbers of extra-judicial killings in IIOJK were part of the extremist anti-Muslim designs of the "Hindutva" inspired BJP-RSS nexus in India.

 “Ironically, the Kashmiri youth had been a specific target of the 900,000 strong Indian military occupation force stationed in the IIOJK,” the spokesperson said, adding that India must realize that use of brutal force against the Kashmiri people, extra-judicial killings, custodial torture and deaths, forced disappearances, incarceration of Kashmiri leadership and youth apart from other methods of subjugation have failed in the past and will not succeed in the future.

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Ahmad highlighted how through a dossier unveiled last year, Pakistan had provided to the world incontrovertible evidence of the gross and systemic oppression, and human rights violations by the Indian occupation forces in the IIOJK.

The spokesperson reiterated Pakistan's call for investigation of extra-judicial killings in the IIOJK by establishing an Independent Commission of Inquiry as recommended by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in its Kashmir reports of 2018 and 2019.

He also urged the international community to hold India responsible for its brazen suppression of innocent Kashmiris, and play its due role in ensuring a just and peaceful resolution of the IIOJK dispute in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and the wishes of the Kashmiri people.