Human Rights Council mustn’t fail Kashmiris: Pakistan’s delegate

GENEVA: Pakistan’s delegate to the Human Rights Council (HRC) has termed Indian attempts at casting aspersions on Pakistan as an act of desperation, saying India is trying to distract the attention of international community from the terrible human rights situation in Indian-occupied Kashmir and that the world does not believe the lies being spun out by India on the issue. The delegate stressed that Jammu and Kashmir was not India’s internal affair and that “this flies in the face of UN resolutions on the subject”. He said India was resorting to the standard, discredited ploy of all occupying powers of terming resistance to oppression as terrorism. “This is the case with the apartheid regime in South Africa when it repeatedly termed Nelson Mandela as a terrorist,” he added. The delegate questioned whether 11-year-old Nasir Shafi Qazi Ahmed who was killed with hundreds of pellets by Indian security forces was a terrorist and those killed and blinded by the use of pellet guns since 8 July were also terrorists. He pointed out that Indian claims of restraint in IOK were mind boggling as one wondered what an unrestrained India would inflict on a defenseless population. The delegate also denounced India for sponsoring terrorism in Pakistan directly through its state apparatus. “Arrest and confessional statements of a serving Indian Navy officer Kulbhushan Jhadav revealed how India fueled terrorist activities in various parts of Pakistan, including Balochistan and FATA, and in countries of the region,” he said.