UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations human rights chief has said the deteriorating situation in India-held Kashmir has now made it crucial to establish an independent, impartial and international mission to assess the situation in the Valley.

Lamenting India’s lack of response to a request for access to the disputed territory, chief of the UN Commission for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Hussein, said: “Two months ago, I requested governments of India and Pakistan to invite teams from my office to visit both sides of the Line of Control: in other words, the India-administered Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.”

In remarks delivered at the opening session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, he said: “We furthermore received conflicting narratives from the two sides as to the cause for the confrontations and the reported large numbers of people killed and wounded. I believe an independent, impartial and international mission is now needed crucially and that it should be given free and complete access to establish an objective assessment to the claims made by the two sides.”

He said the UN continued to receive reports of Indian troops using force excessively against civilian population. He said he was yet to receive a formal letter from the government of India inviting a team from his office to visit the Valley.

Published in Dawn, September 16th, 2016