Pakistan calls for probe into 'extra-judicial killing' of Kashmir labourers

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday reiterated its call for independent inquiry under international scrutiny into the extra-judicial killing of three innocent Kashmiri labourers in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).

The three Kashmiri labourers were martyred by Indian forces in a staged encounter in July 2020 in Shopian where they had come to work in an apple orchard, a statement issued by the Foreign Office said.

“The revelations that weapons were planted on the bodies of the Kashmiri laborers martyred in Kashmir to make it look as though they were armed fighters in a staged gun battle are only a tip of the ice-berg of Indian crimes against the Kashmiri people,” the statement read. “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 staged ‘cordon and search’ operations during the last one year, the FO said.

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“Pakistan has been consistently drawing the international community’s attention towards extra-judicial killings of innocent Kashmiris by the Indian occupation forces to further perpetuate India’s illegal occupation of IIOJK. Similar findings of extra-judicial killings have been reported by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in its two Kashmir reports of 2018 and 2019,” the statement said.

“The horrific act of extra-judicial killing of Kashmiri laborers 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 the brutalities of Indian security forces in IIOJK.

Nothing short of an inquiry under international scrutiny will either meet the requirements of justice or accepted by the Kashmiris people. No cover-up exercises can anymore hide India’s crimes and save it from international censure.”