ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office on Wednesday expressed disappointment over rejection by India of the United Nations report on gross human rights violations in India-held Kashmir and said it welcomed visit of the Commission of Inquiry to the disputed region.

Foreign Office spokesman Dr Mohammad Faisal responded to the Indian stance as the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) stood by its report on Kashmir.

The rights body on Tuesday dismissed ‘numerous misrepresentations’ by Indian authorities and the media of its first-ever human rights report on the issue. Dr Faisal said he was “deeply disappointed by India dismissing the report without examining it”.

According to the spokesperson for the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the report was developed through remote monitoring after India and Pakistan failed to grant the UN body unconditional access to the region, adds Amin Ahmed from Islamabad.

“Since the report was published, we have been deeply disappointed by the reaction of the Indian authorities, who dismissed the report as ‘fallacious, tendentious and motivated’ without examining it and responding to the very serious concerns about the human rights situation in held Kashmir,” spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rupert Colville, said in Geneva on Tuesday.

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2018