India on Thursday strongly condemned the recent statements made by Pakistan on Kashmir, which New Delhi views as its “internal matter” and termed them as “irresponsible”.
Shireen M Mazari, minister for human rights in the Imran Khan government had on Tuesday issued a letter to multiple UN officials, listing Pakistan’s complaints about the situation in Jammu and Kashmir since the abrogation of Article 370.
Mazari had written a detailed letter to 18 UN Special Rapporteurs alleging massive human rights violations by India in Jammu and Kashmir after it revoked its special status, which she termed as “an annexation by force and therefore an illegal act”.
Commenting on the statement, MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said the letter is not even worth the paper on which it is written. “We don’t want to give credence to it by reacting,” he said.
In a seven-page letter, Mazari said an Indian Cultural Forum went on a fact-finding mission to Jammu and Kashmir between August 9-13 and highlighted serious shortages of medicine and other basic necessities thereafter the August 5 lockdown. The team also highlighted incidences of targetting of civilians with pellet guns and cited the case of a Rising Kashmir graphic designer who reportedly received 172 pellet injuries.
The Pakistani minister cited several specific cases of “gender-based violence as a weapon of war”. Mazari mentioned a video that surfaced of BJP MLA Vikram Saini on August 6, in which he was shown as saying that Muslim party workers should “rejoice’ at revoking of Kashmir’s special status as “now they can marry the white-skinned women of Kashmir”.
Mazari drew a parallel with earlier reports by UN rapporteurs alleging gender-based violations against Dalit women and girls in India, and said: “What should be of particular concern is the capacity for increased threats of gender-based violence against Kashmiri women, taking into consideration the impunity for large-scale violations of this nature” against Dalit women.
She also cited the shutdown of telecom facilities in Jammu and Kashmir since August 5, and termed it the “blackout” as a “collective punishment of the people of Jammu and Kashmir without even a pretext of a precipitating offence”.
She attacked the curfew imposed since August 4 night on Jammu and Kashmir, saying it was a violation of the right to religious freedom of Muslims.
Mazari alleged the Indian security forces have been arresting minor children and also denying them the right to go to school due to the lockdown and that children have been the target of pellet guns.
She requested the UN Special Procedures Mechanisms to intervene with the Indian government, to reverse its “illegal annexation of Jammu and Kashmir”; end the communications shutdown, ensure compliance with international human rights obligations, among other suggestions.
Meanwhile, India has made it clear that the recent developments pertaining to Article 370 were “entirely the internal affair of India” and has asked the international community to stay out of the issue.
On reports of Pakistan mulling to close its airspace for India, Raveesh Kumar said that there has been no statement from Islamabad confirming the same.
“What we understand is perhaps there were certain sectors which were temporarily closed; there have been NOTAM (notice to airmen) which were issued and that too for a certain period”.
Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) on Wednesday issued a notice on closing the Karachi airspace partially till August 31. All international flights have been asked to avoid three aviation routes in the Karachi airspace as per the NOTAM.
On the ground situation in Jammu and Kashmir, the MEA said that not a single hospital has reported a shortage of drug or of any disposable item. “Not a single life has been lost, not a single bullet has been fired. There has been a gradual but positive improvement in the situation on the ground,” he said.
Jammu and Kashmir was put under virtual curfew on 5 August when the Modi government scrapped the Article 370 and split the state into two union territories.
Meanwhile, 400 political leaders including former chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah are still under house arrest since August 5.