Int’l community urged to play role in release of Kashmiri leadership, other detainees
Srinagar: The All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) has appealed to the United Nations and international human rights organizations to put pressure on the Indian BJP government to release all Kashmiri political detainees, including Hurriyat leadership, who have been booked under political vendetta and are being held in inhuman conditions in jails in India and Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the APHC spokesman, Advocate Abdul Rashid Minhas, in a statement issued in Srinagar, expressed serious concern over the plight of Kashmiri detainees, many of whom have spent more than two decades in different jails.
The statement, condemning an old fake case against senior APHC leader Shabbir Ahmed Shah, said the Indian BJP regime is victimizing Kashmiri prisoners for challenging its illegal occupation of their homeland and denying them basic legal rights and facilities such as hygienic food and medical care.
The reopening of such fake cases is nothing but an attempt to prolong the illegal detention of Kashmiri leadership and activists, aimed at silencing political voices in IIOJK.
Expressing deep concern over the plight of Kashmiri detainees, he said that most of them have spent more than two decades in jail. He added that some of these detainees include Dr. Muhammad Shafi Shariati, Dr. Mohammad Qasim Fakhtoo, Ghulam Qadir Butt, Nazir Ahmad Sheikh, Mohammad Ayub Dar, Mohammad Ayub Mir, Javed Ahmad Khan, Wahid Ahmed Naiko, Abdul Hameed Tailee, Mohammad Ali Bhat, Tariq Ahmed Mattoo, Mahmood Topi Wala, Bashir Ahmad Pannu, Fayyaz Ahmed, Sharif-ud-Din Gujjar, Muhammad Ashraf Peer, Abdul Ghani Gonee, Lateef Ahmad Waja, Ali Mohammad Kalie, Khalid Mehboob Phalwan, Maqsood Ahmed Bhat, Feroz Ahmed Butt, Pervaiz Ahmed Mir, Mohammad Abbas Wani, Farooq Ahmad Sheikh, Abdul Majeed Baba and Fahdullah.
He maintained that the people of occupied Jammu and Kashmir are proud of Hurriyat leaders and activists who are either in jail or striving on the ground to achieve a peaceful and sustainable solution to the Kashmir dispute in accordance with UN resolutions.
The spokesman pointed out that despite being subjected to physical and mental torture, the Indian authorities have failed to subdue the Kashmiri detainees’ commitment to the freedom struggle.
The APHC appealed to the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, as well as Amnesty International, International Committee of the Red Cross, Human Rights Watch and Asia Watch to use their influence for the release of jailed Kashmiris and the settlement of the Kashmir dispute in accordance with UN resolutions.
