By Asghar Ali Mubarak
ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Saturday that the international community should take note of the human rights violations in Indian-occupied Kashmir amid the outbreak of the coronavirus in the world.
“As the world is busy battling the coronavirus, India is committing injustices in occupied Kashmir,” Qureshi said in a statement to the media after Indian troops resorted to unprovoked aggression along the Line of Control, injuring six Pakistani civilians, including two teenage girls.
“India is targeting the civilian populations on this side of the LoC. India wants to turn occupied Kashmir into a minority state. India has been consistently targeting civilians on the Pakistani side of the border,” the foreign minister said.
Qureshi also lamented that the attitude of the Indian government to a proposed conference of South Asian countries on the virus was negative. “India is bent on persecuting minorities despite challenges like the coronavirus to the economy,” he said. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi also urged provinces to step forward to improve coronavirus testing and quarantine measures so that the repatriation of Pakistani citizens is expedited amid the pandemic.
Chairing a meeting at the Foreign Office on Saturday morning, the foreign minister said that the federal government was making all possible efforts to bring back home the citizens stranded in different parts of the world due to the spread of the novel coronavirus.
“Our envoys in different countries are in constant touch with pilgrims and other citizens who have been unable to return to Pakistan because of the virus situation,” he said at the meeting, adding that a strategy to bring them back to Pakistan was in the process of being finalized.
“We have already brought back 1,600 Pakistanis from abroad in 9 special flights,” Qureshi noted, adding that protocols to deal with the repatriated citizens had also been finalised.
‘Parliamentary committee overseeing repatriation’
The chief of the parliamentary sub-committee on the issues of pilgrims, Shaheryar Khan Afridi, was also present in the meeting, along with Special Secretary on Foreign Affairs Muazzam Khan and several other high-ranking government officials.
“The government has constituted a special parliamentary committee to oversee the repatriation of Pakistanis stuck abroad due to the spread of the coronavirus,” Afridi told the media after the meeting.
“The committee has been tasked to oversee efforts that bring back stranded pilgrims, students, prisoners, and other citizens abroad affected by the coronavirus outbreak,” Afridi added.
Afridi, while outlining that the committee was working on a day-to-day basis, also praised the Pakistani missions in different countries who were working to provide food and other necessities to citizens stuck abroad due to the virus.
Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has on Saturday said that India is being ridiculed across the world due to its false claims.
The foreign minister said while talking to a private news channel that the mindset of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been exposed due to his actions against minorities and the world community should take notice of the matter seriously.
“India is targeting urban population and is trying to convert occupied Kashmir into a Muslim minority state. India is continuously committing violations across the Line of Control (LoC) and its approach regarding SAARC Summit has remained negative.
“Millions of people are migrating from New Delhi. India is busy in anti-minority policies despite the coronavirus and economic challenges.
“Violence in India has increased during the last five years. Modi government is following the Hindutva ideology.”
Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi talking to a private news channel on Saturday said that Indian aggression at the borders amid a global pandemic wreaks of a war mongering opportunistic mindset, media reported.
FM Qureshi said that cross border violations by India against Pakistan’s sovereignty and international laws have been consistent for the past five years where they have resorted to indiscriminate, unprovoked escalations at the Line of Control (LOC) at will and whim.
The foreign minister said that the world is trying to safeguard its people from an invisible threat that continues to wreak havoc but India is still looking for scapegoats for their own lack of planning and governmental deficiencies to control coronavirus. FM Qureshi also said that despite the global challenge in the shape of novel coronavirus, India is hell-bent on targeting its minorities and blaming them for its governmental and Hindutva driven inadequacies.
“Modi and his government’s supremacist Hindutva agenda has never been more apparent as it is now,” said Shah Mehmood Qureshi.
The foreign minister said Modi Government has put the entire Kashmiri leadership and thousands of Kashmiri youth in Indian jails to subjugate their voice and fundamental human rights.
He said India’s stance to introduce changes in domicile rules is basically the agenda of changing the population ratio of Muslims in the occupied territory.
Shah Mahmood Qureshi said the entire Kashmiri leadership and Pakistan have strongly rejected India’s move altogether. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi also deplored India’s negative attitude towards The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in relation to coronavirus.
