The ICHD demanded significant role of the EU institutions in the current situation of the Indian Held Kashmir especially related to the human rights violations. In a letter addressed to EU High Representative for foreign Affairs, Ms. Catherine Ashton, Vice President of EU Commission, Mrs. Viviane Reding, Chair Subcommittee on Human Rights, Ms. Heidi Hautala and EU parliament Chair of the delegation for relations with South Asia, Mrs, Jean Lambert, the ICHD urged active EU involvement in bringing the positive change in the circumstances that were shocking for every peace-loving citizen of the world.
“We are writing to express our concerns over the recent increase in human rights violations in Indian held Kashmir. We would urge the EU intervention in the affair”, wrote the ICHD in the letter. The letter also indicated the fresh statement of UN Secretary General in which Mr. Ban Ki moon described the situation as a security risk.
The letter further mentioned that, “the operations such as those carried out on the 25th of July 2010 lead to the deaths of Tariq Ahmad Dar and Farooq Ahmad Bhat in police custody. Their killings raise serious concerns and questions as we see this pattern repeated over the last year. We also bring to your notice that in the last three months the figures of young innocents targeted by the troops has reached over 100. The EU has the moral responsibility to play a role to stop the killings of innocent unarmed Kashmiri youth”.
Meanwhile, the ICHD chairman, Ali Raza Syed, in his statement said that appalling human rights abuses and atrocities had been committed against the civilians. He said that according to recently published Human Rights report, between 1989 and 2010, the number of Kashmiris killed at the hands of Indian security forces stood at 93,274. He said that the actual number could be much higher considering the lack of the right to information and speech in the Kashmir. The facts and figures show the reality. For example, there had been 6969 custodial killings, over 107,351 children had been orphaned, 22,728 women had been widowed and 9920 women had been gang raped during the period. He said that thousands of Kashmiris had been arrested on fake charges and a large number of houses and other buildings were devastated.
He said that the discovery of 2900 unnamed mass graves in the three districts of the occupied territory in the recent years had proved that all of these innocent people were killed in the different fake encounters by the Indian army. “The current situation shows that freedom movement of Kashmir is taken up by the Kashmiri youth and they are not ready to accept continuation of occupation of their homeland by the Indian forces. The youth started to protest in the streets over the Indian atrocities but Indian forces started to conduct crackdown against the innocent and peaceful demonstrators” said Ali Raza Syed.