ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday again called for an independent probe into the killing of three Kashmiri labourers in July, saying India could not obfuscate its crimes in Occupied Kashmir anymore.
“Pakistan reiterates its call for independent inquiry under international scrutiny into the extrajudicial killing of three innocent Kashmiri labourers in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK),” the Foreign Office said in a statement.
The statement followed a report by police in the occupied region, which stated that an Indian army officer and two others had “planted illegally acquired weapons and material on their dead bodies after stripping them of their identities and tagged them as hardcore terrorists in possession of war-like stores”.
The Indian army officer identified as Captain Bhoopendra Singh has been charged by police with murder, conspiracy and other related offences. Capt Singh is now in custody.
Three Kashmiri labourers were martyred in July in Shopian in an alleged encounter with Indian troops. The three had gone to Shopian to work in an apple orchard. Indian army had on that occasion claimed that they were terrorists and buried them hurriedly to hide their crime.
The killings caused an uproar when the families of the slain farm workers identified their pictures a month later. A rare military investigation into the killings was then ordered, which in September observed that the troops “exceeded powers” given to them under the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).
The FO, in its reaction to the latest development in the case, said: “The revelations that weapons were planted on the bodies of the Kashmiri labourers martyred in Kashmir to make it look as though they were armed fighters in a staged gun battle are only a tip of the iceberg of Indian crimes against the Kashmiri people. The list of India’s crimes against the Kashmiri people is long.”
More than 300 innocent Kashmiris, including women and children, have been martyred in fake encounters and cordon and search operations during the last one year, the FO recalled.
“The horrific act of extrajudicial killing of Kashmiri labourers as well as other such acts over the past three decades, warrant investigation by a UN Commission of Inquiry, as recommended by the OHCHR, to expose brutalities of Indian security forces in IIOJK,” it said.
“Nothing short of an inquiry under international scrutiny will either meet the requirements of justice or be accepted by the Kashmiri people. No cover-up exercises can anymore hide India’s crimes and save it from international censure,” the statement further said.
The FO urged the international community to hold India accountable for its crimes against the Kashmiri people and work for resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and wishes of the Kashmiri people.
Published in Dawn, December 30th, 2020