UK lawmakers raise voice over human rights violations in occupied Kashmir with India  

LONDON: As many as 28 members of the House of Commons in the United Kingdom (UK) have raised human rights violations in occupied Kashmir with India, ARY NEWS reported.

In a letter written to the Indian embassy in London, the UK lawmakers expressed their concern over grave human rights violations besides also highlighting the arrest of a Kashmiri activist Khurram Parvez‎.

The arrest of Khurram Parvez is also being highlighted at the UN, the members of the House of Commons said while seeking reasons behind the arrest and a thorough probe over allegations leveled against him.

They said that Khurram Parvez was not a terrorist but a man defending human rights. “In previous two years, 2500 innocent people have been arrested and some of them have been murdered while being declared as terrorists,” the lawmakers said while expressing concern over fake encounters in occupied Kashmir.

“All of them who die in fake encounters are innocent people,” they said.

Authorities in Indian-Occupied Kashmir in early December freed a prominent rights activist, who had been detained for two and a half months after a court ruled his arrest was illegal.

Khurram Parvez, 39, was released from prison nearly a week after a court in Srinagar ordered him freed, saying that authorities had abused their powers and arrested him arbitrarily.

Indian police had arrested Parvez in September at the peak of deadly protests. The territory has been roiled by unrest with more than 90 people killed since July 8 when a young leader was shot dead by Indian soldiers, making it one of the deadliest bouts of violence in decades.

Parvez was accused of being a threat to peace and was imprisoned under the Public Safety Act, which allows authorities to detain anyone for up to two years without trial.

His group has campaigned for decades against the controversial security law and has exposed widespread rights abuses by security forces deployed in the region.