Pakistan strongly condemns India’s continued campaign of extra-judicial killings claiming lives of seven more innocent Kashmiris

ISLAMABAD, Oct 01 (SABAH): Pakistan has strongly condemned the continued campaign of extrajudicial killings by Indian occupation forces in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK). It is deeply worrying that in the past one week, Indian forces have blatantly carried out a series of extra-judicial murders with impunity on a daily basis, Foreign Office Spokesperson Asim Iftikhar Ahmad said in a statement issued on Saturday.

FO spokesperson said that in one incident near Kupwara on September 25, two innocent Kashmiris were mercilessly killed by Indian occupation forces. In another brutal encounter that occurred after a so-called ‘cordon and search’ operation in Kulgam district on September 26, one more innocent Kashmiri was killed in cold blood.

Asim Ifikhar Ahmad said that in yet another incident that took place in Kulgam district on September 27, two more innocent Kashmiris were shot dead under the facade of a police encounter. Even on Friday, two innocent Kashmiris were targeted and killed in a staged encounter in Baramulla.

He said that the stage-managed encounters enacted after every so-called ‘cordon and search’ operation and resulting in the extra-judicial killings of Kashmiris, openly desecrate the basic tenets of law and justice and defy the fundamental human rights and liberties of the innocent Kashmiri people. Since its unilateral and illegal actions of August 5, 2019, Indian Occupation Forces have murdered more than 678 Kashmiris, including at least 158 this year.

He said that Pakistan reiterates its call for the investigation of extra-judicial killings in IIOJK by the Commission of Inquiry as recommended by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in its Kashmir Reports of 2018 and 2019.

Asim Iftikhar Ahmad said that Pakistan also urges the international community to hold India responsible for its brazen persecution of the innocent Kashmiris and play its due role in ensuring a just and peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and the wishes of the Kashmiri people.