Daily Times

VIENNA: Austrian Senate Chairman Reignher Trodt has said that his country will play its due role in the resolution of Kashmir issue.

He was speaking as the chief guest at a seminar hosted by Kashmir Institute of International Relations (KIIR), a non-governmental organisation, at Vienna Press Club on Friday in collaboration with Social Democratic Party of Austria, according to a message received on Saturday.

The objective of seminar was to apprise the world of the increased human rights abuses unleashed by the Indian forces in Indian-held Kashmir, KIIR Executive Director Sardar Amjad Yousaf said.

Addressing the seminar, Reignher Trodt termed Kashmir a humanitarian issue calling upon both India and Pakistan to resolve this issue according to the aspirations and wishes of Kashmiris.

Trodt said that 71-year old issue had consumed a lot of human lives and Austria would play its due part in resolution.

The AJK legislative assembly speaker urged the world community to end its silence over the plight of the people of Indian-held Kashmir, which had been turned into a hell by the Indian occupying forces in continued abortive attempt to suppress their just and principled struggle
for freedom.

He also called upon India to end its intransigence on the issue.

The KIIR executive director said that India on the one hand was committing massive human rights violations in Held Kashmir and on the other it was involved in frequently violating the ceasefire on a daily basis through unprovoked firing on civilians at the Line of Control.

“Thus India was involved in war crimes blatantly in the region,” he underlined.

KIIR director programmes Altaf Hussain Wani gave a detailed account of human rights violations in IHK.

“There is very little choice between life and death. New Delhi is using all its military might to crush popular and civilian uprising against its occupation,” Wani said, adding that the right to life, the right to freedom of expression and opinion and all civilian spaces in the bleeding vale of Kashmir had been choked by the suppressive Indian forces.

Besides the Austrian Senate chairman, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Legislative Assembly Speaker Shah Ghulam Qadir, KIIR Executive Director Sardar Amjad Yousaf and Director Programmes Altaf Hussain Wani, local community leader Dr Humira and office-bearers of Social Democratic Party also addressed the seminar.

Published in Daily Times, March 26^th 2018.