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Pakistan's call at UN

Resolution of Kashmir

problem imperative

to peace in S Asia

GENEVA: There will be no peace in India and Pakistan unless Indian forces stop killing of innocent Kashmiris, said Munir Akram, Pakistan's Ambassador to United Nations on Sunday.

Through "Pakistan's first right of reply" on right to self-determination and in response to Indian right of replies, Munir Akram said resolution of Kashmir problem was imperative to restore peace in South Asia.

"Do not ignore our proposals, they are true and if peace is to return to South Asia, Kashmir must be at first place," he said urging upon the Commission to seriously consider Pakistan's proposals for restoration of peace.

"This is what is at stake here. This Commission should act now to save lives in Kashmir. We have made proposals. Our proposals are true to the conscience of mankind. Do not ignore them," he said.

He said the Indian delegation in the Commission had failed to respond to the proposals made by the Pakistani delegation.

"What he (Indian delegation) failed to say, was to respond to the proposals made by my delegation to humanise the situation in Kashmir," Munir said.

There are over 600,000 Indian troops in Indian occupied territory of Jammu and Kashmir, he apprised the Commission, saying over 300,000 troops were in the occupied Kashmir valley only.

"Only in Kashmir valley, the Indian troops were almost equal the number of grown man," he regretted.

If this territory, Munir said, had exercised self-determination and if these people had decided to join and stay with India, why did India need over half a million troops to control these people and keep them in hondage.

"India should release them, let them be free, withdraw its troops and let the Kashmiris decide where they want to go," he emphasised.

He also blamed India for conspiring to dismember Pakistan recalling "its (Indias) three aggressions against Pakistan.

For the last several months, he maintained, the Indian Prime Minister and the Indian leadership has, day in and day out, threatened war against Pakistan.

They have gone on a rampage of killings in Kashmir as well. Munir said calling upon the Commission to ask India to stop killing of innocent Kashmiris through state terrorism.

In Pakistan's second right of reply, the ambassador said in a report issued a couple of days ago, Amnesty International noted that he human rights situation in Jammu and Kashmir has been grave for over a decade with dozens of cases of torture, deaths in custody and extra-judicial killings reported every year.

"Currently, the entire leadership of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) is held in preventive detention following their peaceful calls for an election boycott in 1999," he maintained quoting the report.ÑAPP