STOP Genocide in Kashmir

A massive humanitarian and human rights catastrophe has been unfolding across the Line of Control (LoC) in Indian-Occupied Kashmir (IOK). It is not just tragic but criminal that our political leaders, media and civil society have largely ignored this brutal Indian repression of the Kashmiri people, which has now reached new depths of depravity. What the Kashmiris are suffering is nothing less than genocide. As a party to the Kashmir dispute, it is incumbent on Pakistan to take every possible step to expose and prevent this genocide.

The latest wave in the Kashmiri uprising that started in July 2016 after the targeted killing of a Kashmiri youth, Burhan Wani, has not yet subsided. In fact it continues to swell involving even women and teenage children. Since the 1990 uprising, according to Kashmir Media Service, nearly 100,000 Kashmiri Muslims have been killed; 22,000 women have been widowed and 105,000 children have been orphaned. More than 6,000 unmarked mass graves have been found of people killed in fake encounters while 10,000 women have been raped by Indian security forces using rape as an instrument of policy, which was recognised by Amnesty International several years ago. In the latest phase of violence, over 200 unarmed people have been killed and over 20,000 injured while scores of women and children have been blinded by use of pellet guns.

To perpetrate their reign of terror, 700,000 Indian troops in the valley have been empowered by draconian laws, especially the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which have been denounced by international human rights organisations, the UN and its special procedures responsible for human rights and even members of Indian civil society.