FM calls for holding India accountable for rights abuses in IOK

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has urged the international community to hold India accountable for its egregious violations of human rights and serious crimes against the Kashmiri people.
In his message on the occasion of Kashmir Solidarity Day, Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that Pakistan reaffirms its unflinching solidarity with the Kashmiris in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir and the entire Pakistani nation stands with them in their valiant struggle to secure their inalienable right to self-determination.
He said that for 18 months now, IIOJ&K has been under continuous Indian military siege, with Kashmiris virtually caged in their own houses, reeling under communications blockade, and facing severe restrictions on the media.
Following the extremist Hindutva ideology, the RSS-BJP regime has also embarked on a design to change the demographic structure of the occupied territory and obliterate the distinct Kashmiri identity. He urged that the international community must continue its support of the fundamental freedoms and basic human rights of the Kashmiris. He also urged India to allow the UN Fact Finding Mission to investigate the grave human rights violations in IIOJ&K.
The foreign minister said that this solidarity will continue until the Kashmiris achieve their inalienable right to self-determination as enshrined in the UN Charter and relevant UN Security Council Resolutions. He said that his support is the only course to durable peace, security and development in South Asia.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has approached the president of the United Nations Security Council and the UN Secretary General, apprising them of gross and systematic violations of human rights in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) and India’s belligerent and hostile actions against Pakistan.
In his letter addressed to the President of the Security Council and UN Secretary General, the foreign minister underscored that all unilateral and illegal measures taken by India in the occupied territory of Jammu and Kashmir in violation of international law including relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council and the 4th Geneva Convention, such as changes in the demographic structure, usurpation of land and farcical “elections”, are null and void.
The foreign minister recalled the detailed dossier presented to the UN containing irrefutable evidence of India’s active planning, promoting, aiding, abetting, financing and execution of terrorist activities against Pakistan.
Qureshi called upon the Security Council to urge India to immediately lift the continuing military siege and restrictions as well as rescind the illegal and unilateral actions in IIOJK including removal of the draconian laws that enable the Indian occupation forces to continue human rights violations with impunity.
He said India should be impressed upon to immediately release incarcerated Kashmiri political leaders and freeze and reverse the new domicile rules and property laws designed to change the demographic structure of IIOJK.
Qureshi said India should allow access to the occupied territory to the UN observers, international human rights and humanitarian organizations, observers and the international media.
The foreign minister also called upon the UN Security Council to exercise its legal and moral authority to secure the implementation of its resolutions on Jammu & Kashmir which guarantee the Kashmiris’ inalienable right to self-determination. – TLTP