Pakistan again stresses independent inquiry into Kashmiri labourers’ killings | The Express Tribune

Pakistan reiterated on Tuesday its call for an independent inquiry under international scrutiny into the extra-judicial killing of three innocent Kashmiri labourers in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK),

In a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “The three Kashmiri labourers were martyred by the Indian occupation forces in a staged encounter in July 2020 in Shopian where they had come to work in an apple orchard.”

The communique stated, “The revelations that weapons were planted on the bodies of the Kashmiri labourers martyred in IIOJK to make it look as though they were armed fighters in a staged gun battle are only a tip of the ice-berg of Indian crimes against the Kashmiri people. The list of India’s crimes against the Kashmiri people is long,” the MoFA added.

In September, a statement issued by the Foreign Office stated that the Indian army claimed that the three boys were “unidentified terrorists” to cover up for the “cold-blooded murder”, and that instead of handing over the human remains to the families of the victims, the armed forces had buried them in a graveyard marked for “foreign terrorists”.

Two months later, the Indian Army admitted that the three innocent Kashmiris were killed extrajudicially – a hallmark of Indian occupation forces’ state-terrorism in IIOJK.

“More than 300 innocent Kashmiris including women and children had been martyred in fake ‘encounters’ and staged ‘cordon and search’ operations during the last one year,” the press release maintained.

It further stated that Pakistan had been consistently drawing the international community’s attention towards extrajudicial killings of innocent Kashmiris by the Indian occupation forces to further perpetuate India’s illegal occupation of IIOJK.

Similar findings of extrajudicial killings have been reported by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in its two Kashmir reports of 2018 and 2019.

“The horrific act of extrajudicial killing of Kashmiri labourers as well as other such acts over the past three decades warranted investigation by a UN Commission of Inquiry, as recommended by the OHCHR, to expose the brutalities of Indian security forces in IIOJK,” the statement added.

Nothing short of an inquiry under international scrutiny would either meet the requirements of justice or accepted by the Kashmiris, the press release stated, adding that no cover-up exercises can anymore hide India’s crimes and save it from international censure.

“Pakistan reiterates its calls upon the international community to hold India accountable for its crimes against the Kashmiri people and work for resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and the wishes of the Kashmiri people,” the MoFA said.