GENEVA: Speakers at a seminar in Geneva voiced their concerns over the continued and illegal detention of thousands of Kashmiri prisoners in different jails in and outside the Illegally Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
In a seminar titled as “Plight of Kashmir Prisoners,” organized at the sidelines of the 53rd session of the UN Human Rights Council, the speakers said that the human rights situation in the occupied valley was getting worse with every passing day.
The moot was attended by political activists, public representatives, law experts, parliamentarians, and human rights activists hailing from around the world including Altaf Hussain Wani, Chairman Kashmir Institute of International Relations (KIIR), Hassan ul Bana, Faheem Kayani, Mirza Asif Jarral and others.
The speakers said that thousands of Kashmiri people who were taken into custody before and after 5 August 2019 have been languishing in notorious jails in India like Tihar, which has become a death trap for them.
Kashmiri leaders arrested over concocted charges
The speakers were of the view that a large number of Kashmiris who were arrested on 5 August 2019 continue to rot in Udhampor, Khatua, Hiranagar, Amphala, and Kotbalwal jails. The Indian government has given a free license to its security forces and agencies like NIA and Enforcement Directorate to apprehend Kashmiris. They said that dozens of high-ranking political leaders including Shabir Ahmad Shah, Musarrat Aalam Bhat, Nayeem Ahmed Khan, Muhammad Yasin Malik, Asiya Andrabi and others were picked up from their homes and whisked off to jails outside the valley.
They said that these leaders had been abducted by NIA and Enforcement Directorate under concocted and frivolous charges and many prisoners like Dr. Shafi Shariati, Ghulam Qadir, and Dr. Qasim Faktoo were rotting in jails serving life terms.
The speakers, while referring to conviction of the renowned leader Muhammad Yasin Malik, said that Malik’s conviction in a dubious and politically motivated case lodged by the Indian National Investigation Agency (INIA), amply demonstrates how the Modi regime was using judiciary as a tool to silence legitimate Kashmiri voices. India, which had deprived Malik of his basic right to defend himself in the court of law after implicating him in a fake and politically motivated case, was now hell-bent on eliminating him by using its judiciary.
Raising their serious concerns over the NIA’s bid to seek the death penalty for Malik, the speakers said that the agency’s malicious intention poses a grave threat to the life of a leader who has been leading a nonviolent freedom movement and advocating for the peaceful resolution of the Kashmir issue.
