LAHORE, April 7: The Kashmir Action Committee, Pakistan, has condemned the custodial killing of Hizbul Mujahideen’s commander-in-chief Saiful Islam by India’s occupation forces and described it as a brutal act.

In a statement here on Monday, KACP president Dr Muzaffar Shah said that Saiful Islam was first arrested a few days ago and then killed while in police custody. He said that the phenomenon of custodial killing in occupied Kashmir by the occupation forces had become a normal practice under various draconian laws, including the POTA.

Under these laws, the occupation forces pick up any person they like without assigning any reason, detain him in police lockup and then torture him to death. He said that after the murder of Saiful Islam there had been widespread protest demonstrations all over occupied Jammu and Kashmir and at the call of APHC a strike was observed all over the valley and the normal life had been paralyzed. He said that the Indian police had resorted to a brutal crackdown on the people in total disregard of human rights. Such a heavy crackdown and the atrocities committed by the Indian authorities had disillusioned the people from the much trumpeted slogan of healing touch raised loudly by occupied Kashmir chief minister Mufti Sayeed and the occupation forces had belied his claim.

He appealed to the Amnesty International and other human rights agencies to investigate into the cases of custodial and extra-judicial killings, including the disappearance of thousands of innocent Kashmiri youth whose whereabouts had remained a mystery for their parents and relatives for many years now.