AJK president calls for impartial probe into Indian human rights violations

MIRPUR: Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan said on Friday that in the light of the recent report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) which provides solid evidence of gross and consistent human rights violations, including killings, torture and sexual violence, the international community must no longer be a silent spectator and hold India accountable for the atrocities taking place in Indian occupied Kashmir (IOK).

The president made these remarks during a meeting with Sardar Taimoor Aziz, a leading social activist and General Secretary of the Kashmir Committee in Sweden, who called on him at the Jammu and Kashmir House.

President Masood Khan, in his recent visit to Sweden, had a brief encounter with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven and met the Swedish Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights Chairman Serkan Kose and other members.

During his meetings, he had fully briefed them about the horrendous human rights situation in occupied Kashmir and appealed to the international community to come to the rescue of the Kashmiris.

The president reiterated his invitation to the Swedish Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights to visit AJK and see for themselves the steps being taken there to ensure that human rights and dignity were protected at all costs.

He welcomed the OHCHR proposal to constitute and dispatch a commission of inquiry to gather and ascertain the factual state of human rights violations in occupied Kashmir.

He said India had not only been consistently blocking their access to OHCHR but also to Western parliamentarians and civil society organisations.

Meanwhile, Sardar Taimoor apprised the president of the activities of the Pakistani-Kashmiri diaspora in Sweden to raise the profile of the Kashmir issue on the global level.