Peshawar - Every year, October 27 is observed worldwide as ‘Black Day,’ marking 77 years since India, without any legal justification, forcibly took control of the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
The gruesome violations of human rights, including the forced disappearance of over 8,000 innocent Kashmiris, the existence of 8,652 unmarked mass graves, and the imposition of the longest curfew on around 10 million unarmed Kashmiris, have exposed India’s troubling secular face to the world.
According to a Pakistani dossier from September 2021, about 8,652 unmarked graves were identified in 89 villages across six districts in the region, while the bodies of 37 Kashmiris burned alive by Indian forces were beyond recognition.
Since 1989 in IIOJK, there have been around 162,000 cases of arbitrary arrests and torture, over 25,000 pellet gun injuries, 11,250 women raped, 23,000 women widowed, and over 108,000 children orphaned.
State terrorism and human rights abuses have further intensified in IIOJK since the fascist Modi government revoked its special status on August 5, 2019, forcing many Kashmiris to endure sleepless nights due to indiscriminate firing, cluster munitions, sniper attacks, excessive use of pellet guns, and fake encounters.
Mushtaq Ahmed Shah, Vice Chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples League, stated that frustration over India’s intransigence and the world’s hesitation to fulfill its commitments have driven the people of Kashmir to be more assertive in their struggle.
“In the past 35 years of struggle, particularly since 1990, Kashmiris have suffered the loss of more than 100,000 civilians—men, women, and children—and have endured countless atrocities perpetrated by over 900,000 Indian military and paramilitary forces concentrated in Kashmir as an occupying army,” he said.
He lamented that while popular revolts in Eastern European countries were covered extensively by international media, the Kashmir issue has remained largely hidden from global view.
“This is why the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has stated that the news media in Kashmir is on the brink of extinction,” he said.
Amnesty International, in a letter co-signed by six organizations, recently urged representatives of G20 member countries to call for the release of jailed human rights defenders and political prisoners.
The organisations included the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances, the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, Front Line Defenders, and the Kashmir Law and Justice Project.
They urged G-20 countries to raise these issues directly and forthrightly with the Indian government, in accordance with their obligations under international law, and to call on India to adhere to its international legal obligations. “The voices in this letter resonate with a global call for justice, accountability, and the protection of human dignity in one of the world’s most contested territories,” the letter stated.
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has also repeatedly supported the Kashmiri people’s struggle and called upon India to grant Kashmiris their rightful self-determination.
“The 43-page report from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in 2019 exposed the systematic terrorism and war crimes committed by Indian security forces in IIOJK,” said Professor Dr A H Hilali, former Chairman of the Political Science Department at the University of Peshawar.
The report testified that Indian forces used excessive force and pellet guns against peaceful Kashmiris in 2016, resulting in numerous civilian deaths and injuries, which constitutes a clear violation of the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, he noted.
“Great Hurriyat leader Muhammad Yasin Malik was sentenced to life in prison in a fabricated case, an attempt to silence his strong voice for Kashmir’s freedom.”
He added that the brutal killing of freedom fighter Burhan Wani and other Kashmiri leaders in fake encounters, along with the issuance of over six million illegal domicile certificates of IIOJK to Hindus, have exposed the anti-Kashmir policies of the Hindutva regime.
Dr Hilali asserted that India’s illegal occupation of Kashmir Valley contravenes multiple articles of the 30 fundamental human rights outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), drafted by representatives from all regions of the world, including India, on December 10, 1948, and subsequently adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.
He emphasised that this declaration applies to all signatory members of the UN, including India, and restrains them from all forms of abuse, exploitation, maltreatment, and violence protected under the UDHR.