Welcoming the UN Special Rapporteur Christof Heyns’s statement in which he had said that AFSPA “has become a symbol of excessive state power and has resulted in consuming innocent lives in Jammu and Kashmir”, the pro-liberation Kashmiri leadership has expressed the hope that the world community would now put pressure on India to revoke AFSPA and other laws from Jammu and Kashmir.
APHC Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, in a statement in Srinagar, hoped that the United States would formally analalyse the report of its Special Rapporteur and would play its role for withdrawal of the draconian laws from the occupied territory, KMS reported.
Senior APHC leader, Shabbir Ahmad Shah showing satisfaction over the Christof Heyns’s statement, said that the world had started realising the sufferings of the people of Kashmir.
The spokesman for the forum led by veteran Kashmiri Hurriyet leader, Syed Ali Gilani, said that in the changing world scenario, it had become difficult for India to subjugate the Kashmiris for long. The Chairman of Forum for Justice, Muhammad Ahsan Onto and human rights activists Abdul Qadeer Dar and Abdul Rauf Khan said that the statement was a proof of bitter reality the people of Kashmir facing in the territory. APHC leader, Muhammad Yousuf Naqqash hailed the finding of the UN Special Rapporteur as a good step. The UN Special Rapporteur, Christof Heyns, releasing an interim report of his 12-day visit to India and Jammu Kashmir on March 30, called for repeal of all draconian laws, including Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), Jammu and Kashmir Disturbed Areas Act (DAA) and Public Safety Act (PSA) from the territory.
