Islamabad: Pakistan on Thursday urged the United Nations and the international community to take urgent notice of the “grave human rights violations” by Indian forces in Kashmir.
Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria, speaking at a weekly media briefing, said discrimination against and mistreatment of minorities, especially Muslims, in India has become order of the day.
The spokesman said the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and other world bodies should take steps to help end “persecution of religious minorities in India.”
Zakaria alleged that Pakistan continues to suffer from what he called “India sponsored terrorism.”
Separately, the chief executive of Pakistan-administered region of Kashmir, Raja Farooq Haider, exhorted the Pakistan government to raise at the UN Security Council the issue of “India’s state terrorism” in New Delhi-administered Kashmir.
“Across the world, even the oppressors cannot go beyond a certain limit in use of force against the oppressed. Indian troops have crossed all limits and the way they are killing the Kashmiris, demolishing their properties and molesting their women is unprecedented in modern history,” Haider said at a news conference in the state capital, Muzaffarabad.
“As prime minister of the liberated territory of Kashmir as well as a common Kashmiri, I call upon the Government of Pakistan to raise this issue in the UN Security Council in accordance with the UN Charter,” he said.
A delegation of the OIC’s Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission visited Pakistan-administered Kashmir this week and held meeting with the state leaders.
Officials said India had not responded to the delegation’s request for access to Indian-administered Kashmir to assess the human rights situation there.
The delegation also visited refugee camps and interacted with refugees who had migrated from the Indian part of Kashmir.
