Shabir Shah Urges World Community to Take Notice of Increasing Indian State Terrorism in Indian-occupied Kashmir

Srinagar: Veteran Kashmiri leader and Chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party, Shabir Ahmed Shah, has urged the international community to take effective notice of the increasing Indian state terrorism in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

In his message from Tihar jail, the incarcerated DFP chief, while voicing his concern over the worsening political and human rights situation in the held territory, said that the Indian authorities at the helm of affairs have intensified their state terrorism in the occupied territory, mainly targeting pro-freedom leaders, activists, and civil society members who have been critical of the Modi government’s muscular policy.

Highlighting the use of state repression in response to democratic dissent in the held territory of Jammu and Kashmir, the DFP chairman said that on the one hand, the witch-hunt against political, social, and human rights activists goes on unabated, while on the other, occupation authorities have reopened cases against hundreds of political activists. “They are being summoned to police stations every now and then, harassed, humiliated, dragged to the courts, and forced to appear in courts far away from their homes,” he said.

“Arbitrary arrests of Kashmiri political leaders and activists, booking them under black laws, leaving them to rot in jails and interrogation cells without producing them in the court of law, getting them punished in fake and fabricated cases, awarding severe punishments such as death penalties, reopening old cases in which they have already been acquitted, and dragging them and their families to the courts have become a new normal in Kashmir,” he said.

Shah said that not only political activists but also members of civil society, rights defenders, and even journalists were being rounded up and put in jails. He regrettably noted that the Modi government was using its judiciary as a weapon to silence legitimate political voices in Kashmir.

He said that the ruthless suppression of dissent was a serious violation of basic human rights.

Shah said that the international community should mount pressure on India and demand the Modi government to stop the use of state repression to crush political dissent in Kashmir and to stop using its judiciary as a weapon to punish Kashmiri leaders who have been waging a peaceful struggle to achieve the fundamental rights guaranteed to Kashmiris by no less an authority than the United Nations.