OHCHR calls for unconditional access to IOK
 

India insists Kashmir is its integral part and there
can be ** comparison between the two sides of
Kashmir; Pakistan supports OHCHR team’s visit to
IOK to independently probe grave HR violations

GENEVA/NEW DELHI: As unrest neared 70 days in the Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK) on Thursday, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra ad Al Hussein said an international probe was needed crucially in Kashmir though India hit back saying that violence was choreographed from across the border.

India also questioned the reference to Indian and Pakistan-administered areas stating that the entire Jammu and Kashmir was its integral part and the two sides can**t and should **t be equated.

Speaking at the 33rd session of the Human Rights Council, Hussein said he had requested India and Pakistan to allow teams from his ****** to visit both sides of the Line of Control (LoC).

Hussein said they had received reports of excessive force used against civilians on the Indian side and also of conflicting narratives from the two sides about the unrest that has seen over 80 deaths so far.

“I believe an independent impartial and international mission is **w needed crucially and that it should be given free and complete access to establish an objective assessment of the claims made by the two sides,” Hussein said, adding that while Pakistan had acceded to his request for a visit to its side, India had yet to do so.

“The neutrality of the phrase Indian Administered Kashmir is therefore artificial,” Indian External Affairs Ministry said, adding that Jammu and Kashmir had an elected democratic government but that was **t the case on the Pakistani side.

Responding to the statement made by the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, the Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations on Human Rights Ambassador Tehmina Janjua on Thursday welcomed the remarks made by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights about the use of excessive force by the Indian authorities against the civilian population in the IOK.

She said Pakistan supported the position of the high commissioner that an OHCHR team should visit the valley to independently and impartially investigate the grave violations being perpetrated by the Indian occupation forces over the past two months.

The visit by the team would help address the culture of impunity, which is prevailing there. She reminded the Human Rights Council that Jammu and Kashmir was an international issue recognized as such by a number of UNSC resolutions.

“Despite the broad-based indige**us nature of the latest uprising which started with the extrajudicial killing of 22-year-old Burhan Muzaffar Wani for whose funeral 200,000 people came out, India continues to cast aspersions on its indige**us nature. But this is hardly surprising, as it is the characteristic of oppressive regimes to label those struggling for their rights as terrorists,” she said.

Tehmina Janjua added that the claims of restraint shown by India were simply preposterous. The ambassador’s assertion was based on facts that in justover two months the Indian occupation forces had martyred more than 100 in**cent Kashmiris with over 700 eye injuries while scores of them had been blinded either completely or partially due to deliberate use of pellet guns and inflicted injuries to around 10,000.

The ambassador said if this was restraint then this definition of restraint was unique to India only. Also Indian obduracy in disallowing outside observers to Held Kashmir testifies to the fact that the Indian government wishes to hide the atrocities unleashed against the Kashmiri people, she added.



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