KARACHI: Chairman Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has written a letter to Secretary-General United Nations (UN) Ban Ki-Moon , drawing his attention towards increasing tempo and scale of human rights violations in Kashmir, particularly since July 8 when the Indian security forces used disproportionate force to indiscriminately kill political activists.
Bilawal told Ban ki-Moon that during the few days, over 40 people had been killed and thousands injured, whose only fault was to demand their right to self-determination guaranteed to them by the United Nations over six decades ago.
He added that the graphic media reports speak loudly of the atrocities in Kashmir at the hands of Indian security forces.
He also told him that Kashmir is a dangerous flashpoint in the South Asian region and regardless of which government is in power the people of Pakistan are committed to provide moral, political and diplomatic support to the people of Kashmir in their just struggle for their inalienable right of self determination.
The PPP chairman wrote that the over seven hundred thousand Indian troops stationed in Kashmir for the past decades had not been able to suppress the yearning of the Kashmiri people to achieve what had long been promised to them by the international community, including through an important instrument of a UN Resolution.
“Furthermore any conflagration or ramping up of tension also runs the risk of threatening regional peace and stability”, said Bilawal in his letter.
He further said Pakistan has been in the forefront of seeking non-military solutions to this vexed conflict and seeks your good offices in taking note of the egregious violations of the Kashmiri people’s right to self-determination.
Bilawal urged Ban ki-Moon the UN to take notice of the state-sponsored violence in Kashmir and prevail upon the Indian authorities to immediately cease all such actions that violate the human rights, dignities and fundamental entitlements of the Kashmiri people. Because the United Nations is not only the guarantor of fundamental human rights of peoples anywhere in the world, but is also responsible for taking pro-active measures to ensure peace in regions prone to conflict such as the South Asian region.
