Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Senator Farhatullah Babar on Sunday said the report last month of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights offered an opportunity to alleviate the sufferings of people of Indian-Held Kashmir.

He said this while addressing a seminar on the second death anniversary of Kashmiri militant group commander Burhan Wani organised by the Peace & Culture Organisation headed by its chairperson Mushaal Mullick, wife of Kashmiri leader Yasin Malik in the National Press Club in Islamabad on Sunday.

Burhan Wani’s martyrdom galvanised the people of Kashmir as never before. For the first time, educated middle class youth have risen. The coalition government had been disbanded and governor rule imposed. Repression had increased but so has the resistance, he said.

For the first time, the UN had reported on the grim situation in IHK and called for inquiry into human rights violations. For the first time, the UN had talked of enforced disappearances, curbs on expression, reprisals against human rights defenders and journalists, use of pellet guns and torture in IHK.

“It was for the first time, the UN has lamented total impunity for enforced disappearances. Pakistan should support the proposed commission of inquiry and also offer to allow its visit to Azad Jammu & Kashmir. Simultaneously, we should also improve our own human rights record and end enforced disappearances and internment centres. We must bring torture legislation and stop gerrymandering before and after polls to be credible,” he said.

The former Senator also called for bringing changes under Geneva Conventions against individuals responsible for grave rights violations in IHK as well as proposing UN Convention against pellet shotguns.

He said that the Kashmiris’ cause was so strong that it did not need external non-state actors which indeed undermined the cause of self-determination after the Kargil debacle.

“The Kargil misadventure caused irreparable damage to Kashmir by reducing it to cross border terrorism from Pakistan. Wani’s martyrdom and the events flowing from it has sought to correct the narrative by re-shifting focus from territorial dispute to human rights, freedoms, fundamental rights and torture,” he said.

Former senator Syed Zafar Ali Shah, Maria Sultan and Mushaal Mullick also addressed the seminar.

Published in Daily Times, July 9^th 2018.