FO condemns extra-judicial killings of three more Kashmiris by Indian forces

Pakistan strongly condemned on Tuesday the latest extra-judicial killings of three Kashmiri youth in Srinagar in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IIOJK) by the Indian occupation forces.

On December 29, Indian forces killed three young Kashmiris-Aijaz Maqbool Ganie, Zubair Ahmed Lone, and Athar Mushtaq Waniclaiming they were supporters of armed groups and likely planning an attack. However, their families have affirmed that the three teenagers were innocent and were murdered in another case of a staged gunfight.

The brother of one of the victims, Zubair said that this is clearly a fake encounter, adding that his brother had lunch at home on Tuesday afternoon hours before the gunfight began in Srinagar, Al Jazeerareported.

“I want to ask the army, how did my brother become a militant within hours? Where did he get weapons and join militancy? Where did he get himself trained in hours?” he asked.

In a statement today, the Foreign Office (FO) condemned India's refusal to hand over the bodies and said it is doubly inhuman that the bodies of the three martyrs are not handed over to their families for a proper burial, despite repeated appeals by the families.

"This is a new form of oppression that the Indian occupation forces are now resorting to in order to break the will of the Kashmiri people. They will never succeed in this attempt," FO said.

The FO further said that the unabated killing spree in IIOJK and the reprehensible refusal to hand over the bodies should be a matter of grave concern for the people of conscience across the world. The morally bankrupt RSS-BJP regime should not be allowed to act with such impunity, the FO said.

Pakistan has consistently emphasized that the gross and systematic violations of human rights being perpetrated by the Indian occupation forces 'warrant an investigation by a UN Commission of Inquiry, as recommended by the OHCHR in its Kashmir reports of 2018 and 2019'.

Pakistan also reiterated its call for an independent inquiry under international scrutiny to investigate the extra-judicial killings of Kashmiris and to bring the perpetrators to justice.