GENEVA, Jul 03 (APP): Pakistan has told the UN Human Rights Council that the plight of children in Indian occupied Kashmir, which is under a tight lockdown for the last 10 months, has further deteriorated, and called on India to end its atrocities against them.
“Militarily cooped up in their homes under the suffocating ‘double’ lockdown, over 1.5 million Kashmiri children have endured the worst form of violence which the contemporary world has yet to witness,” Ambassador Khalil Hashmi said.
He was participating in an interactive dialogue with the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Violence Against Children, Maalla M’jid, in the 47-member council in Geneva on Thursday.
Recalling that in August last year, the renowned medical magazine “Lancet” alerted the world community that in wake of India’s heavy militarization of the occupied territory, the mental health crisis there will only worsen, disproportionately affecting women and children, the Pakistani envoy said, “Nearly a year later, the situation seems even grimmer.”
“From forced abduction during night raids to torture, from restricted access to medical help to no recourse to virtual educational facilities, from extra-judicial killing to sustaining permanent disabilities from pellets, Indian brutality against hapless Kashmiri children knows no bound,” Ambassador Hashmi added.
He said the recent image of a 3-year-old Kashmiri boy, crying and sitting on the dead body of his grandfather, who was executed by Indian occupation forces, summed up India’s State-sanctioned terrorization of Kashmiri children, and life-long impact of such terror on their mental health.
“We urge the Special Representative to remain seized of the situation of the Kashmiri children in the occupied territory, and call on India to halt its grave atrocities against them, in compliance with its obligations under international human rights and humanitarian laws.”
