Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Thursday expressed Pakistan’s strong condemnation of the despicable act of demolition of 100-years-old Ghareeb Nawaz Masjid in India’s Uttar Pradesh with the complicity of the local administration.

In a weekly press briefing, Foreign Office spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri told journalists that this reprehensible act echoes demolition of the centuries-old Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992 at the hands of radical mob. He said that Pakistan once again urges the Indian government to ensure safety, security and protection of minorities, particularly Muslims and their places of worship.

The spokesperson maintained that India must fulfill its responsibilities under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international instruments, including recommendations of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. “We also call upon the international community, the United Nations and relevant international organizations to play their role in preserving the Islamic heritage sites and ensure protection of minorities in India,” he added.

About the situation in Occupied Jammu Kashmir, he said that they were deeply grieved on the demise of Ashraf Sehrai, who passed away in Indian custody. Sehrai, senior leader of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) and chairman of the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, was arrested last year on trumped up charges under the Public Safety Act.

“Ashraf Sehrai remained incarcerated in Indian jail under squalid conditions despite serious deterioration of his health and the prevailing COVID-19 crisis,” he mentioned. “Like him, a number of Kashmiri leaders continue to languish in Indian jails, with many at undisclosed locations,” he said and added that as the COVID-19 situation in India deteriorates, they also remained deeply concerned over the health and safety of those Kashmiri leaders.

The Foreign Office spokesperson referred to 21st May, which marks the martyrdom anniversaries of prominent Kashmiri leaders Mirwaiz Maulvi Mohammad Farooq and Khawaja Abdul Ghani Lone, and the martyrs of Hawa. He said that these heinous crimes and extrajudicial killings of innocent Kashmiris in fake encounters and so-called ‘cordon-and-search’ operations continue unabated to date.

“Most recently, Indian forces extra-judicially killed two more innocent Kashmiris in Khanmoh area in the outskirts of Srinagar,” he said, adding that the impunity granted to the occupation forces has resulted in the systematic targeting of Kashmiri youth through extra-judicial killings, torture in custody, enforced disappearances and incarcerations.”

He said that Pakistan had consistently emphasized that the gross and systematic violations of human rights being perpetrated by the Indian occupation forces warranted an investigation by a United Nations Commission of Inquiry, as recommended by the OHCHR (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights) in its reports of 2018 and 2019.

The Foreign Office spokesperson said that Pakistan reiterates its call for independent inquiry under international scrutiny to investigate the unabated extra-judicial killings of Kashmiris by Indian forces, and bring perpetrators of these heinous crimes to justice.