Daily Times

NEW YORK: Pakistan has handed over a dossier on human rights violations in India-held Kashmir (IHK) to the United Nations General Assembly chief.

Prime Minister’s special envoys on Kashmir Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed and Dr Shezra Mansab Ali handed over the dossier to UNGA President Peter Thomson in New York and briefed him on the threat to regional peace and security posed by the deteriorating situation in IHK.

Senator Mushahid said India had closed all doors to bilateral dialogue, scuttled a regional summit and refused to implement United Nations Security Council resolutions at the international level.

Dr Shezra shared details of the killings of protesters in Kashmir, and briefed the UNGA president on injuries caused by the use of brute force by Indian troops. Peter Thomson expressed concern over the situation and assured the visiting envoys of every possible effort to foster peace. He said that an update on the current situation from the UN Department for Peacekeeping Operations would also be sought. At the UN, the envoys also met Jeffrey D Feltman, the under-secretary-general, as well as senior officials from the Department for Peacekeeping Operations.

Meanwhile, talking to the United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA) Senator Mushahid Hussain said that the only way forward to deescalate the current tensions was through dialogue and discussions. “We should start talking to each other, rather than at each other.”

Senator Mushahid and Dr Shezra met reporters at a luncheon after completing their engagements at the United Nations.

Pakistan’s Representative to the United Nations Maleeha Lodhi, who hosted the event, said Pakistan was “ready to engage [in talks with] India, bilaterally, regionally and internationally”. She said that Pakistan wanted Indian atrocities in Kashmir to stop, and talks to begin, to address the serious issues between the two countries.

Dr Shezra Mansab Ali told reporters that the use of pellet guns, blinding hundreds – including children, women and men – was a particularly barbaric manifestation of the use of force.

Senator Mushahid said the war hysteria stoked by India was aimed at distracting the world’s attention from its brutal acts to suppress the legitimate demand of Kashmiris – the right to self-determination.

To a question, Mushahid said that Pakistan expected the United Nations Human Rights Council to send a fact-fining mission to IHK to assess the situation, activate the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) that monitors the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir, and implement its resolutions to settle the dispute.

He said that the UNSC swiftly implemented its resolutions on East Timor and South Sudan, but not on Kashmir, which had been on its agenda since 1948. “That’s a case of UN double standards,” he said.