MUZAFFARABAD: A Srinagar-based human rights activist on Monday called upon Pakistan’s mainstream print and electronic media to highlight flagrant human rights violations in India-held Kashmir with full force.

“India’s security apparatus is committing the worst ever human rights violations in the held territory which are either hushed up or played down by its media. We rightly expect and demand that Pakistan’s print and electronic media should highlight these violations at the international level,” said Mohammad Ahsan Untoo, the chairman of International Forum for Justice and Human Rights (IFJHR-JK).

Mr Untoo was speaking to journalists at the Central Press Club Muzaffarabad through a video link. IFJHR AJK vice-chairman Mushtaqul Islam and some of his colleagues were also present.

Mr Untoo pointed out that it was the continuous negative propaganda of Indian media against APHC leader Musarat Alam that forced the Indian government to immediately re-arrest him.

“While the government and people of Pakistan are continuing their political, moral and diplomatic support to the freedom seeking Kashmiris, the media in Pakistan is also required to play a proactive role to help us by highlighting our just cause and exposing Indian atrocities on us,” he said.

Sharing the details and figures of atrocities and human rights abuses at the hands of India’s military and paramilitary forces, he said since 1990, as many as 94,166 people had been killed in held Kashmir, 27,563 of them aged between seven months and 40 years.

Of these killings, 17,219 took place during mass slaughters in different areas, he said, and added that India’s killing sprees in held Kashmir had orphaned around 107,518 children.

Mr Untoo said 2,900 unmarked graves had been discovered in the territory but around 8,000 people were still missing.

According to him, Indian troops had arrested some 128,000 people during the ongoing movement.

“Today’s Kashmir is home to widows, half widows and orphans, thanks to the brutalities unleashed by the Indian government through its troops enjoying the cover of black laws,” he said.

The IFJHR chairman also called upon the international community, particularly the UN and the human rights watchdogs, to give up their “silence and double standards” vis-à-vis Kashmir.

To a question, he maintained that the destination of freedom would come nearer if Kashmiris from both sides of the divide would launch a joint organised struggle.

Responding to another question, Mr Untoo said inquiries ordered by the Indian or IHK governments into incidents of killings were merely a hoax, aimed at pacifying the public fury.

So far, there have been around 783 magisterial inquiries ordered by the IHK government over the past two decades but to no avail, he said.

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2015

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