New Delhi, Aug 9 (NVI) UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is concerned over the volatile situation in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (POJK) where Pakistani forces have been indulging in extreme brutalities and wants accountability for actions taken against people involved in peaceful protest.
POJK has been in turmoil for over two months, with masses protesting to demand their due rights and end to Pakistan’s interference in political and other matters of the region.
The agitation is led by J&K Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), a conglomerate of several non-political organisations of POJK.
To crush the protests, Pakistani forces have been resorting to the worst forms of brutality, firing bullets on the peaceful unarmed civilians, which have reportedly left over 400 killed and hundreds of others injured.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk had on July 17 expressed concern about the recent developments in PojK and called for an impartial and thorough investigation into the deaths of protesters.
“The Secretary-General supports the work of his High Commissioner, and we certainly hope that the pleas made by Mr Turk will be listened to,” Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General Farhan Haq said in response to a media query in New York.
On whether there will be calls for accountability from the authorities on the crackdown on protestors in the PoK, Haq said, “It’s important that all authorities everywhere allow for peaceful protest, and certainly that is the case here. If there have been people harmed for engaging in peaceful protest, there needs to be accountability for that.”
The High Commissioner had called for prompt, thorough and impartial investigations into all deaths that have occurred due to the unrest, both amongst protesters and members of security forces.
The JAAC has alleged that the Pakistani establishment manoeuvres 12 ‘refugee’ seats of POJK Assembly to install a government of its choice in the occupied region, negating the wishes of the locals.
The agitation began ahead of the elections to the 53-member Assembly and due to the mass protests and boycott, polling for seven seats have been postponed now.
India maintains that the entire Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh are its integral and inalienable parts.
There are 53 seats in the so-called PoK legislative assembly, 45 are directly elected, while eight are reserved for women, technocrats and clerics.
Elections for the 45 seats are being held in three phases, with the first phase on July 27 and the second phase on August 2 marred by violent protests.
India, on August 4, described the so-called local body elections in PoK as a “complete farce”, asserting that such “hollow” exercises cannot hide the ground reality in the region.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) strongly criticised Pakistan’s crackdown on protesters in PoK and said the international community should see through the “flimsy veneer” of Islamabad’s “hypocritical lecturing” on human rights.
“This so-called local election in PoK is a complete farce. The real happening is that of public protests and wanton killings by Pakistani forces. Such hollow exercises cannot hide reality,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in New Delhi. (NVI)
