The webinar, titled ‘Demystifying Kashmir Under Siege’, was hosted by Legal Forum for Kashmir (LFOVK), an advocacy group for Kashmir based in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad.
India has moved away from United Nation Security Council (UNSC) resolutions, the ongoing situation in Indian Occupied Jammu Kashmir (IOJK) demands global attention, the speakers emphasized.
“The most important thing on 5th August 2019 was Indian government played a wicked trick to rob the right of Kashmiris through so called unilateral parliamentary act,” said Dr. Muhammad Zia-ur-Rehman, Associate Professor at National Defence University Islamabad.
Prof Dr Shabana Fayyaz, Head of the Department, Department of Defense and Strategic Studies, Quaid e Azam University, stated that, Kashmiris are facing the wrath of Indian government’s aggressive policy, whatever is happening in Kashmir is actually breach of international human rights law.
“Even the people who are in favor of Delhi like Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah were imprisoned and cornered. Muslims are facing oppression by Modi regime not only in Kashmir but across India just because of their religious ideology,” she added.
Saba Aslam, Executive Director of Islamabad Institute of Conflict Resolution (IICR), stated that ‘every day in Kashmir is a black day’.
“The National Investigation Agency (NIA) officials are acting like ‘Heinrich Himmler’, the head of Russian Gestapo and architect of the holocaust. The NIA falsely implicated innocent Kashmiris and later tortured them in infamous jails. Not only the young and old but Kashmiri mothers and daughters are languishing in jail. Our sisters Nahida Nasreen, Asiya Andrabi, and Fahmeeda Sofi have been detained in Tihar Delhi jail from last 5 years,” she added.
She further highlighted the plight of Kashmiri prisoners in Indian jails saying, this is the new tyrannical phenomenon employed by Modi to kill Pro-freedom leaders under custody. The government of Pakistan must push world community including the ICRC to visit jails in India and Jammu & Kashmir.
Farzana Yaqoob, former Minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir said, whatever happens in Kashmir is because of ‘illegal occupation’ and presence of military troops in occupied territory.
“Kashmir is in state of war there are war crimes going on and still no action taking by any independent or international organization” she said.
Advocate Nasir Qadri, Director of LFOVK said that, more than ‘7 decades of military occupation in IOJK speaks endless tales of war crimes’.
“Pakistan has been very aggressive on the diplomatic front but times has come to up the ante. The recent dossier on war crimes shared by Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), though is welcoming step after long time but same needs to be taken to logical end,” he said.
“We have to be very pragmatic while invoking the ‘law fare’ on Kashmir. Even a single case of ‘war criminal’ in the dossier, if prosecuted by International court or under ‘Universal jurisdiction’ would be enough to show world what is happening in IOJK,” he added.
