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Custodial deaths:

Kashmiris protest

in New Delhi

ISLAMABAD: Kashmiri leaders and different Human Rights Organisations staged a demonstration in New Delhi to protest recent custodial killings of human rights activists and massacre of other Kashmiris in held Kashmir by the Indian security forces.

PTV Correspondent Ghulam Nabi Khayal reported from New Delhi that hundreds of workers of human right organisations participated in the demonstration. They handed over a memorandum to Indian Supreme Court demanding a judicial enquiry of the custodial killing of Kashmiri Lawyer and human right activist Jalil Andrabi and massacre of 24 other Kashmiris.

A large number of women holding banners and placards also took part in the protest and demanded punishment for the culprits. The demonstrators also appealed to the world community to take note of the situation in held Kashmir, particularly the killing of innocent citizens.

Meanwhile, Kashmiri's again reiterated the total boycott of proposed parliamentary election in Kashmir. In Juma congregations in Srinagar, the people rejected the Indian plans of holding elections in Kashmir valley and said it all was being staged against public opinion.

UN apprised of Muslim grievances

"The solution to the sufferings and pain in held Kashmir is both urgent and vital" said Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, Executive Director, UN Commission on Human Rights, currently being held in Geneva.

According to a message received here on Sunday, Fai added Kashmir was far more populous and strategic area than other trouble spots in the world. "The pain felt by the people of Kashmir is no less devastating than that felt by the people of Haiti", Fai said.

He said, that the nuclear tinderbox in South Asia was no less threatening than in Korea. "The mass rapes by the Indian occupation forces are no less humiliating in Kashmir than in Bosnia. The torture and imprisonment in Kashmir is no less intense as it is in Burma. In fact, the pain, suffering and humiliation in Kashmir is intensified because the people of Kashmir have been under occupation for nearly half-a-century", Dr. Fai said.

He said: "Herein lies our only hope. I stand here on behalf of my people and in the All Parties Hurriyat Conference who hold great hopes in the United Nations. I am confident, Chairman, that you will not let them down."

"Jalil Andrabi, Chairman, Kashmir Commission of Jurists is not here today, because he was arrested by the Indian paramilitary forces while he was driving home with his wife on March 8. Later his dead body was found floating in River Jhelum with his eye balls gouged out and legs and arms cut", Fai told the body.

Last year, he had pleaded in the UN sub-Commission that human rights could only be restored by allowing the people of Kashmir to exercise their right of self-determination that was promised to them by both India and Pakistan and the United Nations.-APP