Rehman Malik writes letter to UNCHR on HR abuses in Kashmir

ISLAMABAD: Former interior minister and Chairman Senate Standing Committee on Interior Senator Abdul Rehman Malik on Saturday has written a letter to the Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) against ongoing human rights violations in Kashmir by Indian forces and has asked him to constitute a parliamentary commission consisting of parliamentarians from different countries to visit Indian Held Kashmir (IHK) and observe the worst kind of human rights violations there.

Senator A Rehman Malik has written to Ms. Michelle Bachelet Jeria the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNCHR) “I would like to draw your kind attention towards the unprecedented brutalities committed against innocent Kashmiris in terms of mass murders, mass blinding through pelleting, enforced disappearances, tortures, rape, political repression and suppression of freedom of speech including the complete lock down of the daily life by Indian forces in IHK.”

He writes that the people have been deprived of the basic amenities of life and been caged in their own homes without any access to groceries, food, water, medicines and even the baby food. Reportedly, he stated the infants are dying without food and medicines and many deaths have been caused because of the lack of medicines. He writes that the government of Indian Prime Minister Modi has surprisingly and illegally scrapped the special status of Kashmiris by revoking the Articles 370 and 35-A, in violation of 11 resolutions being passed by UNSC on Kashmir wherein the status of Kashmir cannot be changed, adding that the United Nations Commission for Human Rights in its report dated 14th June, 2018, has highlighted in detail the brutalities committed by Indian government. He has written that as per the available statistics the details alone, since January 1989 till 31st January 2018, 94,644 innocent Kashmiris have been killed, 7,099 were killed in custody, 11,042 women were gang-raped and 7,485 were injured by pellets.

Rehman Malik has written that he was approached by the number of the parliamentarians from all over the world who have expressed to become part of the Investigative Commission constituted under United Nations Commission for Human Rights to visit IHK and to observe the human rights violations there. He writes, “I, therefore, propose that an Investigative Commission may be constituted by the UNHCHR to investigate the human rights violations and brutalities committed by Indian government in Indian occupied Kashmir”.

Senator Rehman Malik in his letter has requested OHCHR to grant him time in a meeting, at the earliest enabling him to brief her in person and also to present a list of the international parliamentarians who have volunteered to be part of the United Nations Human Rights Investigative Commission on Kashmir, allowing us to interact with the local people besieged in Kashmir.

While concluding the letter, Abdul Rehman Malik has written, “At the end I would also like to call upon you to please move your SOS action to move United Nations Peace Keeping Missions on urgent basis to save the lives and properties of innocent Kashmiris and play your role in exposing the brutalities, genocide and ethnic cleansing in the Indian Held Kashmir and to expose the Indian RSS mafia.”