There is need for enhanced international monitoring on human rights crisis in IoK: FO

(Karachi) Foreign Office spokesperson Aisha Farooqui has said that there is a need for enhanced international monitoring and continued UN reporting on the human rights crisis in Indian occupied Kashmir to save lives, dignity and freedom of the citizens in held valley.

Addressing a media briefing in Islamabad on Thursday, she said the people of Jammu and Kashmir has been under illegal Indian occupation for over seven decades.

She maintained the UN human rights body highlighted India's non-compliance with its international human rights obligations and also condemned its atrocities in the valley.

Aisha maintained UN Special Rapporteurs raised serious concerns over India's continued barbarism, arrests, detentions, torture, corporal punishment, extra-judicial killings, and lockdown in Occupied Kashmir.

India revoked Kashmir's special status on August 5, 2019 that led to protests and killings of innocent Kashmiris in the valley.

The people of Kashmir have been living under curfew-like conditions for over 11 months now.

Normal life remains crippled in the occupied valley as military lockdown has cost the territory’s economy worth billions over the past several months.

Amid continued military siege, internet and mobile phone services are shut down, public transport is off the roads, and business establishments are shut while schools and offices continue to wear a deserted look.

The lockdown has rendered more than 50,000 workers jobless while there is also a shortage of skilled labour in occupied Kashmir, as some 400,000 migrants have left since India imposed undeclared martial law in occupied Kashmir on August 5.