ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Sunday condemned the extrajudicial killing of six people in occupied Kashmir by members of the Indian security forces.
In the first “cordon and search operation”, the police “neutralised” one Faheem Bhat — who it accused of killing a police official —Â in the village Kalan Sirgufwara town of Anantnag city, The New Indian Express reported.
In the next 48 hours, the raiding teams killed five more in what the report claimed were anti-terrorist operations.
“Pakistan strongly condemns extrajudicial killings […] by Indian occupation forces in the last three days in continuing fake encounters and so-called cordon-and-search-operations,” the Foreign Office said in a statement.
The spokesperson said a 19-year-old student was among those killed by the Indian forces with impunity in Islamabad (Anantnag). At least 18 people have been killed in December so far, he recalled.
The spokesperson said the occupation army had intensified arbitrary detentions, night raids, coercion, harassment and humiliation of the people of Kashmir, as the extra-judicial killings in staged encounters and cordon-and-search operations continued unabated.
He said the burial of the last remains of the dead at undisclosed locations since April 2020 without the consent and presence of their families was yet another abhorrent manifestation of the callous behaviour and moral bankruptcy of Bharatiya Janata Party-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh combine.
The official said India should be well aware that no amount of oppression and use of force could break the will of the valiant people of Kashmir who were resolutely standing up against the state terrorism in the region, and struggling for their inalienable right to self-determination as enshrined in the UN Security Council resolutions.
The spokesperson reiterated Pakistan’s call on the international community to hold India accountable for its grave and systematic violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in Kashmir.
The violations must be investigated by an independent commission of inquiry as recommended by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in its reports of 2018 and 2019, he added.
Kashmir has been disputed by India and Pakistan since the end of British colonial rule in 1947. In August 2019, India constitutional autonomy of the disputed region, inflaming religious tensions.
Many people saw the move as another step in the erosion of Muslim rights by India’s Hindu-nationalist government.
In recent months, freedom fighters have also intensified attacks on village council members and other leaders in Kashmir. Many have been shot dead in the recent past, prompting police to move thousands of them to high-security zones.
Many of those attacked belong to the BJP of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
