Indian troops martyred 210 Kashmiris during 2021: report

Indian troops in their unabated acts of state terrorism martyred 210 innocent Kashmiris including five women and five young boys during the year 2021 in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).

According to a report released by the Kashmir Media Service, today, 65 of the martyrs were killed in fake encounters and custody. The Icon of Kashmir resistance movement, Syed Ali Gilani, also died during his continued house arrest.

The authorities harassed the family members of the veteran leader and did not allow people to offer his funeral prayers. Tehreek-e-Hurriyat Chairman, Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai, also died while he was in Indian police custody.

The report said, the killings by the troops rendered 16 women widowed and 44 children orphaned while 13 women were molested, abused or disgraced by the men in uniform during the year. It said that Indian forces destroyed 67 residential houses and structures.

The report pointed out as many as 487 persons were injured due to the use of brute force on protesters while 2,716 people including Hurriyat activists, human rights defender Khurum Parvez, students and young boys were arrested during house raids and crackdown operations by Indian troops and police. Many of those arrested were under black laws, Public Safety Act (PSA) and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

The report said that resistance leaders including APHC Chairman Masarrat Aalam Butt, Muhammad Yasin Malik, Shabbir Ahmed Shah, Nayeem Ahmed Khan, Aasiya Andrabi, Fehmeeda Sofi, Naheeda Nasreen, Altaf Ahmed Shah, Ayaz Muhammad Akbar, Peer Saifullah, Raja Merajuddin Kalwal, Shahid-ul-Islam and Farooq Ahmed Dar continue to remain in detention in Delhi’s Tihar Jail in fake cases.

It added that 95,948 Kashmiris have fallen to the Indian bullets during the last 33 years in the occupied territory.

Pakistan has strongly condemned the extra-judicial killing of four more Kashmiris by Indian occupation forces in Srinagar and Kupwara in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).

Indian occupation forces have martyred the youth during a staged cordon and search operations.

The Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson said in a statement, “Indian occupation forces have martyred at least 210 Kashmiris in fake encounters or so-called “cordon and search operations” in 2021.”