ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Wednesday strongly condemned the extra-judicial killing of 23-year-old Irfan Ahmad Dar, a shopkeeper from Sopore region of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), who was picked up from his home and mercilessly tortured to death in police custody.

"More than three hundred innocent Kashmiris, including women and children, have been martyred by the Indian occupation forces in fake encounters, so-called "cordon and search" operations, and other instances of use of brutal force including pellet guns during the last one year," Foreign Office spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said.

He said that India's inhuman methods to subjugate the Kashmiri people through killings, torture, forced disappearances and incarcerations had failed in the past and would not succeed in future.

He said that the perpetuation of India's state-terrorism cannot break the will of the Kashmiris or quell their efforts to secure their inalienable right to self-determination as enshrined in the relevant United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolutions and international law. The spokesperson asserted that the international community must take immediate cognizance of the worsening human rights situation in IIOJK and hold India accountable for its serious crimes against the Kashmiri people. India must be made to comply with its international legal obligations and respect fundamental rights of the Kashmiri people, including the foremost right to life, he added.

"It is also the collective responsibility of the world community, including the United Nations, to work for peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions and international law for durable peace and stability in South Asia," he added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020