File photo
In statement, Foreign Office says six youth were targeted by Indian forces, bringing to 18 the number of Kashmiris killed in December alone
Pakistan on Sunday condemned the extra-judicial killing of six Kashmiris by Indian forces in India-held Kashmir, stressing that this had brought the number of Kashmiris slain with impunity to 18 in the month of December alone.
“Pakistan strongly condemns extrajudicial killings of six more Kashmiri youth in IIOJK [Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir] by Indian occupation forces in the last three days in continuing fake encounters and so-called cordon-and-search-operations,” read a statement issued by the Foreign Office. “A 19 year old student was martyred today (Sunday) by Indian occupation forces with impunity … at least 18 Kashmiris have been martyred by Indian occupation forces in the month of December so far.” It added.
Lamenting that Delhi’s forces had “intensified arbitrary detentions, night raids, coercion, harassment and humiliation” of the Kashmiri population alongside staged encounters and cordon-and-search-operations, it said that the burial of the deceased in unmarked locations since April last year without the consent and presence of their families was “yet another abhorrent manifestation of the callous behavior and moral bankruptcy of BJP-RSS combine.”
Stressing that no amount of oppression or use of force would “break the will of the valiant Kashmiri people” who are defying India’s state-terrorism and struggling for their inalienable right to self-determination, the Foreign Office reiterated its calls for the international community to hold India accountable for its grave and systematic violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.
Such crimes, it noted, “must be investigated by an independent Commission of Inquiry as recommended by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in its reports of 2018 and 2019.”