Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Office Spokesman Nafees Zakria said that three months of Indian state terrorism in Held Kashmir has augmented the sufferings of the Kashmiri people, as they are facing shortage of food, medicines, water and other basic amenities of life.

He expressed these views in a weekly media briefing on Thursday.

The FO spokesman said that Pakistan raised the humanitarian aspect of the Kashmir crisis time and again. “Since 1989, more than 100,000 innocent Kashmiris have been brutally killed, and thousands disappeared.”

He said that Pakistan strongly condemn the recent wave of Indian brutalities in Indian-held Kashmir, in which occupation forces martyred more than 110 civilians and injured over 15,000 others.

He said that shooting with pallet guns into the eyes of innocent people, including children, had caused loss of eyesight of about 850 people.

On the opposition parties’ criticism of the government for not raising the Kashmir issue properly at the international level, Zakaria said that the entire country, especially the political spectrum, was unified on the issue of Kashmir. “We have always stood by our Kashmir brethren in their movement for right to self-determination,” he said.

He said that All Parties Hurriyat Conference Chairman Syed Ali Geelani was being kept under prolonged house arrest despite his ailing health.

He said that Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Chairman Yasin Malik had developed life-threatening heart problems during his illegal detention.

The FO spokesman said that Pakistan “condemns the detention and arrests of Kashmiri leaders, who are peacefully struggling for their right to self-determination” that was promised to them in the relevant UN Security Council resolutions. “We urge India to release thousands of political prisoners who have been booked under the draconian law known as the Public Safety Act,” he said.

Nafees Zakria said that prime minister’s special envoys on Kashmir were sensitising other governments on the large-scale human rights violations committed by the Indian security forces in IHK.

He said that Pakistan had already taken up the issue of India’s terror financing in Pakistan at all relevant forums. “We had submitted a dossier last year at the UN and also raised this matter in our meetings with the P-5 members, as well as [during] bilateral meetings with various countries,” he said.