ISLAMABAD, March 10: The massacre of Muslims in India is of serious concern for the United Nations which will take up the issue at its 58th session of the UN Commission on Human Rights.

“I have been very concerned about the killings in Gujarat,” observed the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson said on her arrival here on a three-day official visit to Pakistan.

Talking to Dawn soon after her arrival from Afghanistan, Robinson said her presence in the region would help in appraising the situation and the response of the Indian government.

“I will take the opportunity while I am in the region to closely see how it is being dealt with by the authorities in India,” she said, regretting the bloodshed occurred in the aftermath of World Conference on Combating Racism, Religious Intolerance and Discrimination.

Robinson, who will be meeting President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Monday, said the issue of Gujarat killings and the Kashmir issue would certainly come up in her talks with the president.

On human rights violations in the Indian Occupied Kashmir, Robinson said that they had been getting conflicting reports from both the governments, but added, she was very clear there was a human rights situation.

“I am very clear that it’s a human rights situation and it will be important for me to appraise this perspective, the extent of the human rights situation, extra-judicial killings, torture, etc. In reality we could do much more on the human rights side if there was political will to reach an agreement on both sides, but that’s the stark reality of this.”

As regards the human rights situation in Pakistan, she said there were a number of serious concerns which she would take up in her meetings with the president and the ministers.

“I am aware that there have been very serious violations of women’s rights here in Pakistan, domestic violence, honour killings, equality before the law etc, and these are issues I would be discussing in the context of the improvements being made.”

Robinson, who earlier visited Egypt, Bahrain and Lebanon in reply to a question about human rights situation in the Middle East said she proposed international observers to act as eyes and ears for the international community which could have saved a number of lives. She said the international observers would not stop the violence immediately but at least it would deter the kind of activities that were giving rise to the death of children, the kind of blockages which have women giving births in cars and losing their babies because they couldn’t get access to hospitals etc.

Robinson said she continued to follow with serious alarm the situation in Occupied Palestinian territories and the increasing attacks and the human insecurity in Israel. It’s a non-acceptable situation for both people, she said.

She said: “Violations were occurring in parts of Afghanistan. One serious issue is continuing violence against Pakhtoons in northern parts of Afghanistan, and men and women have told me horrible stories of violence including rape.”

She said there was a strong voice in Afghanistan not to give impunity to those who committed crimes.