Roots in Kashmir writes to UN chief Antonio Guterres, says Pakistan used 'fake' image in stamps

Roots in Kashmir, a Kashmiri Pandit youth initiative, on Monday wrote a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres regarding “issuance of fake stamps by Pakistan”. The letter stated that the “Pakistan government had recently issued postal stamps which they believe would aid in ‘highlighting’ the human rights abuses of Kashmiris by the Indian government.” The letter added that the group found one stamp which used the picture of a “protest carried out by the Kashmiri Pandit group Roots in Kashmir to protest against its forced exodus and exile, the perpetrators of which are terrorists and subversives supported by Pakistan.” Roots in Kashmir said they see this as “an attempt to appropriate the exodus and exile of Kashmiri Pandits and thus a spiteful attempt at not just deflecting blame but also an attempt to deny the victims of ethnic cleansing a right to protest by appropriating their symbols of protest.” Roots in Kashmir further urged the UN chief to formally write to the Government of Pakistan to withdraw the stamps and ask them to issue an apology “to the entire Kashmiri Pandit community for the crimes against them and also for the false representation they have tried to make by using the protest picture of Roots in Kashmir.” Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi referred to the stamps during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly and said that India “used the pretext of stamps issued months ago, of a Kashmiri activist and depicting grave human rights violations, including pellet gun victims, as an excuse to back out from the talks.” India had called off a meeting between External Affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and Qureshi citing the stamps and the “brutal” killing of three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir. According to India Today, two of the 20 stamps released by Pakistan were falsely attributed. Apart from the image mentioned above, another picture reportedly shows some children sitting and crying with the caption “homeless children”. A Google search for the image took the India Today team to several news articles related to the killings of 36 Sikhs at Chattisinghpora near Srinagar in March 2000. Pakistan had used fake images to attack India in 2017 as well. Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN Maleeha Lodhi allegedly showed a Gaza war victim’s photograph and claimed it to be an image representative of Indian atrocities. Lodhi showed the photograph terming it as the face of “Indian democracy”.