The United States has castigated the Indian government for extrajudicial killings, torture, rape and disappearances by Indian troops in the occupied Jammu and Kashmir and north-eastern Indian states.
The US State Department, in an annual document released by State Secretary Hillary Clinton in Washington, said that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act still remained in effect, which provided the Indian troops immunity from prosecution for acts committed by them.
The document also referred to the Public Safety Act, saying that under this act the authorities could detain a person without charge or judicial review for as long as two years. The document maintained that the family members were not allowed access to the detainees in jails. The police, the document added, routinely employed arbitrary detention and denied detainees’ access to lawyers.
Meanwhile, a complete shutdown would be observed in the occupied Kashmir on Wednesday as a mark of reverence for the two Kashmiri women who were abducted, molested and subsequently killed by men in uniform in Shopian three years ago on May 30. The call for strike was given by veteran Kashmiri freedom movement leader Syed Ali Gilani and senior APHC leader Shabbir Ahmad Shah.
Senior APHC leader Abbas Ansari, while addressing a function on the golden jubilee of the Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen in Sringar, said the Kashmiris were determined to continue their struggle to achieve their right to self-determination.
The Association of the Parents of the Disappeared Persons held a special meeting of prayers at its office in Srinagar on Tuesday to mark the International Week of the Disappeared, commenced from the previous day. The participants of the meeting urged religious scholars to hold special prayers for the disappeared persons and their families on Friday.
Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai, the executive director of the Kashmiri American Council, speaking at a reception at Royal Banquette Hall, Brooklyn in New York, voiced his continuing belief that India and Pakistan alone could not resolve the 65-year-old Kashmir conflict. He called for inclusion of genuine Kashmiri leadership in all negotiations on the dispute.