SRINAGAR, Dec 10: Separatists in occupied-Kashmir accused India’s army of violating human rights and appealed for UN intervention as they staged protest marches on Saturday to mark International Human Rights Day. Police broke up a small march by activists of the main separatist alliance, Hurriyat, in the summer capital Srinagar and detained four separatists.
“They have been detained for violating law and order,” a police officer at the scene said.
But another group of protesters presented a petition to the small United Nations office in Srinagar that monitors the ceasefire along the Line of Control.
Protesters were led by a senior Kashmiri leader Shabir Shah who spent over 20 years in Indian jails and who heads Kashmir’s anti-violence Democratic Freedom Party.
The petition addressed to UN chief Kofi Annan alleged that rights violations were continuing in Kashmir despite a peace process between India and Pakistan who have been feuding for decades over the region.
“There is no let-up in human rights violations (by Indian troops) even as a constructive peace process is going on,” read the two-page memorandum. “We continue to be killed and oppressed.
“On behalf of nearly 13 million people on both sides of the Line of Control, I passionately appeal to your kind self to respond to the boiling Kashmir situation,” the document said.
“We believe demilitarising the region would help find the long elusive Kashmir solution. Let this credible world body reach out to the oppressed people of Jammu and Kashmir,” it added.
New Delhi has barred Amnesty and other leading international human rights groups from visiting Kashmir to check on the situation.
India says it has a “credible and impartial” National Human Rights Commission to monitor the situation.—AFP
