Geneva, March 16 (KMS):  In Geneva, a Kashmiri delegation, during the 13th session of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, held meetings with various rights organisations and apprised them of the deteriorating human rights situation in occupied Kashmir.

Kashmiri woman activist, Shameema Shawl, while speaking during the general debate in the United Nations Human Rights Council, said that India had maintained policy of repression in the occupied territory to crush the just struggle of Kashmiri people for their right to self-determination.

She apprised the Council of the continued human rights violations including extra-judicial killings of people in custody, disappearances, torture and rape by Indian troops and police personnel under the protection of draconian laws in occupied Kashmir. She said that the paramilitary forces were using the women as weapon of war and targeting schoolboys to intimidate the people into submission.

Shameema Shawl urged the members of the council to impress upon India to allow human rights mechanism like special envoy on torture, arbitrary detention and working group on enforced disappearance to visit Kashmir and investigate the crimes being committed by the occupation troops.

She urged the international human rights organisations to take serious notice of the current situation of occupied Kashmir and compel India to make peaceful way for the resolution of the dispute, which is a flash point in the region.

Meanwhile, Kashmiri leader, Altaf Hussain Wani, addressing a seminar on the sidelines of the 13th session of the UN Human Rights Council deplored that on one hand India had been continuing its illegal occupation of Jammu and Kashmir while on other, had been denying right to self-determination to the Kashmiri people for the past several decades.
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