By Asghar Ali Mubarak
ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Human Rights, Dr Shireen Mazari on Wednesday said that India has exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to accelerate the pace of its colonization project in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IIOJK).
“India consolidated its illegal and unilateral actions of 5th August 2019 before the world,” she said. The minister said that global human rights landscape presents a bleak picture of so-called Indian secular state where the abuses and impunity are writ large especially in occupied territories. “Some of the leading Human Rights advocates continue to prioritize political, strategic and commercial interests over human rights values and principles.” she said.
Addressing virtually the 46th session of UN Human Rights Council, she said last year, she had presented before this House about the plea and the petition of the Kashmiri people where India is deploying unprecedented demographic engineering, in violation of the 4th Geneva Convention, to convert the Muslim majority into a minority in the occupied region.
Highlighting the ongoing Indian atrocities in Kashmir, she said that over 3 million non-Kashmiris have been illegally granted Kashmiri citizenship; allowed permanent settlement; purchase of properties and lands and apply for local jobs in the occupied territory. “India is usurping Kashmiri people’s inalienable right to self-determination in willful breach of the UN Charter, UN Security Council resolutions, and international law,” she said.
