Daily Times

The innocent people of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir are under military siege since August last year while emergence of Covid-19 in the occupied territory has worsened the problems of the Kashmiri people.

The Human Rights Watch last month stated that Indian government’s unwarranted restraints on the right to free speech and access to information, healthcare and education have been intensified in the wake of Covid-19, despite the fact that Article 55 & 56 of the Geneva Convention IV maintains that the occupying power must ensure sufficient hygiene and public health standards as well as the provision of food and medical care to the population under occupation. Despite this, India has been continuously keeping the Kashmiri people away from basic health facilities.

India is also violating the UNSC Resolution 2532 (2020) regarding cessation of hostilities during Covid-19, which calls for immediate cessation of hostilities and global ceasefire during the fight against the pandemic. The UN resolution called upon all parties to armed conflicts in the world to engage immediately in a durable humanitarian pause for at least 90 days. India, however, continues to use force not only against civilians across the LoC but also in the IIOJK.

Since August 5, 2019, India, as an occupying force, has also not allowed any international human rights organization to visit IIOJK to ascertain the situation there. India should immediately give unhindered access to international humanitarian organizations in IIOJK in accordance with international legal obligations. The ICRC has a legal mandate to perform its duties during international armed conflicts and India is under obligation to provide unhindered access to humanitarian organizations to help and provide humanitarian relief to civilians in need. India is also under obligation to provide access to ICRC to contact those who are deprived of their liberty in accordance with Article 126 of the GC III and Article 143 of the Geneva Convention IV. However, due to military siege, communications blackout and travel bans, international human rights organizations are restricted from performing duties in the territory.

Even the leading international daily Washington Post recently termed the closure of Amnesty International in India as a shameful blow to human rights and free speech in the country. In an article, the paper wrote that targeting of the global rights watchdog is part of sustained efforts to transform India into a fascist state by suppressing dissent. The paper opined that by attacking Amnesty International, the Modi-led BJP government has actually tried to distract the attention of people from its failures.

In the occupied valley, unrelenting military siege imposed by Modi-led fascist Indian government on August 05 last year, continues to take a heavy toll on daily life of the Kashmiris in the territory. In the last 14 months of the military siege, Indian troops have martyred at least 253 Kashmiris including six women. Most of the victims were killed by the troops in fake encounters in the garb of so-called cordon-and-search operations. Youth were picked up from their homes and then eliminated after falsely labeled as mujahideen or over-ground workers. The killings by the troops during the past 14 months rendered 12 women widowed and 27 children orphaned.

At least 1,498 people have been critically injured due to the use of brute force, bullets, pellets and teargas shelling by Indian troops on peaceful demonstrators in the territory. The troops damaged over 968 houses and structures and molested or disgraced 89 women and arrested 14,096 persons in the period.

Besides leaving undeletable and devastating impacts on the Kashmiris’ psyche, the unrelenting siege, on one hand, has left the economy of the territory in doldrums, while on the other, it has enormously affected the education and health sectors at a time when it was hit by the novel coronavirus. While all forms of communication including the internet, mobile and landline phones and social media sites are disbanded, the entire Kashmir has been turned into an information black-hole for rest of the world. Colonial tools such as arbitrary arrests, imprisonments and detention of youth in concentration camps are being used by India to stifle the voice of Kashmiris, who had been struggling for their legitimate right to self-determination guaranteed to them by the world community.

It is need of the time that the Indian government, which has an appalling human track record of muzzling the voices of dissent, should be pressurized to allow a UN fact-finding mission to visit IIOJK to carry out an independent investigation into the incidents of human rights violations, enforced disappearances and systematic genocide of Kashmiri youth by Indian forces. Peace in the region would remain a distant dream unless the long pending dispute is addressed in accordance with the universally accepted principle of right to self-determination.