ISLAMABAD: Parliamentarians on Tuesday criticised the Foreign Office (FO) for failing to highlight the atrocities committed by the Indian army in Kashmir and draw attention of the international community towards human rights violations there.

“About 200 civilians were killed, 273 lost their eyesight and nearly 20,000 others were injured when the Indian army intensified its atrocities using pellet guns with the aim to maim and kill,” the National Assembly Standing Committee on Human Rights was informed.

Director Kashmir at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Shahras Asim told the meeting that his office had written a letter to the United Nations secretary general drawing his attention to the grave violations committed by the Indian security forces and asking him that the world cannot turn a blind eye to the atrocities.

A massive media campaign was initiated and videos of the brutalities committed by the Indian forces were shown in parliaments of various countries on the black day and the Kashmir Solidarity Day.

“These efforts had tremendous impact and were highly appreciated by the international community for showing it the side of the perspective they did not know of. In this age of the media, the government plans to aggressively pursue such campaigns to show the world the brutalities committed by the Indian government against civilians,” the official added.

However, the members criticised the ministry for making no efforts on its own and only borrowing footages from foreign media on blatant human rights violations in the Indian held Kashmir to show to the world.

MNAs Aliya Kamran and Surriya Asghar argued that all efforts on Kashmir and awareness raising campaigns were made by Kashmiris living outside Pakistan and working in parliaments of various countries.

The members were also disturbed with a map of Pakistan without the Indian held Kashmir shown as its territory. The committee directed the ministry to make efforts to ‘restore’ the map of Pakistan showing Kashmir as its territory.

Shahras Asim responded that the foreign media had been using maps that did not show the Indian held Kashmir as a part of Pakistan.

“To rectify this error, the ministry has written to Pakistani missions in all countries to ask the foreign media to use the United Nations maps of this region. However, the Indian lobby, which is stronger than Pakistani lobby, counters Pakistan’s claim on Kashmir.”

Responding to criticism on Indian interventions in Balochistan, the official said India was interfering in Balochistan to take attention away from the held Kashmir and save itself from embarrassment.

Responding to another question on anti-Pakistan campaigns by Indian government in Geneva two months ago, the official said the Swiss ambassador to Pakistan was summoned.

“However, the Swiss envoy defended the rights of the people to freedom of expression in his country. Pakistan will initiate a similar campaign to counter Indian propaganda. Pakistani missions have been asked to submit the budget requirements to launch similar campaigns against India,” the official said.

When asked why Pakistan’s representative to the UN Maliha Lodhi showed a wrong picture of a pellet victim at the UN General Assembly, the official said it was a genuine mistake.

“Those who provided the material did not do their homework which caused a lot of embarrassment,” the official said.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2017