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| September 23, 2006 | Saturday | Sha'aban 29, 1427 |
Rights group says abuses common in AJK
ISLAMABAD, Sept 22: A US-based human rights group has accused Pakistani security forces of using torture and other rights abuses in Azad Kashmir.
“Most incidents of politically motivated torture recorded by Human Rights Watch involved the ISI, or the police acting on the military’s behalf,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released on Thursday.
HRW issued a similar report on Indian Kashmir last week in which it said that rights abuses continued there unchecked.
In the 71-page report on Azad Kashmir, HRW noted that there had been a reduction in infiltration of militants into occupied Kashmir, but it was still taking place.
“Most of those interviewed were of the view that though the level of infiltration had decreased substantially since 2004, there have been no indications that the Pakistani military or militant groups had decided to abandon infiltration as policy.”
The report said the Pakistani military still maintained a close relationship with the militant groups in Kashmir.
It said last year’s devastating earthquake in the region was used an “opportunity to craft a new image for the militant groups rather than as an opportunity to disband them”.
Charities linked to militant groups took a high profile in relief work after the devastating earthquake that killed more than 73,000 people last October.
Pakistan’s government, however, has rejected the report.
“It is heavily biased and it contained factual errors,” Minister of State for Information Tariq Azeem Khan told a news conference after the report was released.—Reuters
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