Daily Times

Sir: It is because of vitriolic international propaganda that Pakistani media’s repetitive editorials and reportages on Kashmir has remained so droll. But, now there a whiff of fresh air. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights has released a report which corroborates the authenticity of Pakistani media reports about Indian atrocities in held Kashmir.

The UN report has been titled ‘Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Kashmir: Developments in the Indian State of J-K from June 2016 to April 2018, and General Human Rights Concerns in Azad J-K and Gilgit-Baltistan’.

The leading Indian newspapers (The Statesman, Hindustan Times, Times of India, and others) were quick to publish Indian government’s knee-jerk rebuttal the same day they reported publication of the UN report. Indian government and media is furious that the report mentioned `Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan’ instead of Pakistan’s occupied territories of Kashmir (which India thinks belong to her). What irks India the most is that the report makes no mention of so-called cross-border terrorism from Pakistan?

Major recommendations of the report include establishing a commission of inquiry to conduct a comprehensive independent international investigation into allegations of human rights violations in Kashmir. It has said “It is essential that the Indian authorities take immediate and effective steps to avoid a repetition of the numerous examples of excessive use of force by security forces in Kashmir”.

It has also recommended the repeal of the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act, 1990 (AFSPA) Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act 1978 “urgently” and also “immediately remove the requirement for prior central government permission to prosecute security forces personnel accused of human rights violations in civilian courts”.

The report says “Impunity for human rights violations and lack of access to justice are key human rights challenges in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, noting that AFSPA and Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act 1978 (PSA) have created structures that obstruct the normal course of law, impede accountability and jeopardize the right to remedy for victims of human rights violations”.

Let our slumbering foreign office wake up and highlight the contents of the afore-quoted first-ever United Nation report on the human-rights situation in Kashmir.

Amjed Javed

Rawalpindi

Published in Daily Times, June 19^th 2018.