Pakistan stands with Kashmir as lockdown enters Day 150

KARACHI, 02 Jan 2020 [Fik/News Sources]: Pakistan on Wednesday reaffirmed its unflinching support and solidarity with the Kashmiris accusing India of stretching the lockdown in Indian-administered Kashmir to 150 days. 

"As part of our unstinted moral, political and diplomatic support for the Kashmir cause, Pakistan will continue to raise at all international forums the plight of over 8 million innocent Kashmiris under the brutal occupation of 900,000 Indian security personnel, persecuting them day and night with impunity," a statement from the Foreign Ministry said.

Terming India’s claims of normalcy returning to the region "farcical", Islamabad called for urgent and effective steps by the world community to address the human rights situation in the region.

"India must immediately lift the continuing lockdown and communications restrictions imposed in the occupied Kashmir since Aug. 5, free all detainees particularly young children, release the senior Kashmiri leadership, remove all draconian laws, withdraw its 900,000 security personnel from the occupied territory, and allow unhindered access to international humanitarian and human rights observers and the international media to the occupied territory,” the statement added.

Already heightened tensions between the two South Asian nuclear-armed rivals have further flared up after India scrapped the special provisions of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The region has been under a near-complete lockdown since Aug. 5.

Several rights groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have repeatedly called on India to lift restrictions and release political detainees.

Indian authorities, however, claim that daytime restrictions have been lifted in the region.

India and Pakistan both hold Kashmir in parts and claim it in full. China also controls part of the contested region, but it is India and Pakistan who have fought two wars over Kashmir.