ISLAMABAD: Foreign Office on Monday termed a reported Indian plan to take diplomats based in New Delhi to Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) as part of its efforts to mislead the world community, ARY NEWS reported.
While responding to media queries, the Foreign Office Spokesperson said that such guided tours are a smokescreen, aimed at diverting international attention from India`s egregious human rights violations in IIOJK, and creating a false impression of ‘normalcy’.
The spokesman said that the visit to occupied Kashmir would mean nothing if there is no access to all the areas and the possibility to freely interact with the people of Kashmir and the civil society in an atmosphere free of intimidation.
“Equally, meeting the senior Hurriyat leadership including those incarcerated on trumped-up charges alone would enable an objective assessment of the ground realities,” he said.
The foreign office said that the Indian notion of so-called normalcy in the occupied Kashmir has no feet to stand on and the world can clearly see that the illegal and inhuman military siege continues for over 18 months now.
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“Extra-judicial killings of Kashmiris in fake ‘encounters’, and staged ‘cordon-and-search’ operations have become rampant; arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances and custodial torture have increased; Kashmiri leadership remain incarcerated; journalists, human rights activists and international human rights organizations are being harassed; and the Kashmiris’ fundamental rights, including the right to express themselves, continue to be denied,” the press release said.
The foreign office demanded that India must also allow the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR); the United Nations Observers; the OIC Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC); international human rights and civil society organizations; and international media to visit the occupied Kashmir and assess the situation on the ground.
