UN releases first report on rights violation in Kashmir, PoK; India calls it fallacious and motivated

India rejected a United Nations report alleging human rights violations in Kashmir as "fallacious, tendentious and motivated". In a strong reaction, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said the report is "overtly prejudiced" and seeks to build a "false narrative", on Thursday.

It violated the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity, it said. In the report released on Thursday, the UN talked about alleged human rights violations in both "Indian-administered and Pakistan-administered Kashmir" and sought an international inquiry into these abuses.

Representational image. PTI

The report also sought repealing of the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act, 1990 "urgently" and also "immediately remove the requirement for prior central government permission to prosecute security forces personnel accused of human rights violations in civilian courts."

"India rejects the report. It is fallacious, tendentious and motivated. We question the intent in bringing out such a report," the MEA said. It added that the report is a selective compilation of largely unverified information.

"The report violates India's sovereignty and territorial integrity. The entire state of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India. Pakistan is in illegal and forcible occupation of a part of the Indian state through aggression," the MEA said.

In the first of its kind report, the United Nations also talked about the gross violation of human rights in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. Asserting that there was an "urgent need" to address the past and ongoing human rights violations, the UN rights body also urged for a political solution to the Kashmir dispute, which would entail accountability for past and current human rights violations.

The report said, "any resolution to the political situation in Kashmir should entail a commitment to ending the cycles of violence and accountability for past and current human rights violations." "The people on both sides of the Line of Control have been detrimentally impacted and suffer from limitations or denial of a range of human rights," the report added.

It also talked about the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani by the Indian forces which triggered unprecedented protests in the Valley during this period. There has been documented evidence of these groups committing a wide range of human rights abuses, including kidnappings and killings of civilians and sexual violence, it added.

"Despite the Government of Pakistan's assertions of denial of any support to these groups, experts believe that Pakistan's military continues to support their operations across the Line of Control in Indian-Administered Kashmir," the report said.

Pakistan is yet to react on the report, but the Indian government has maintained that Indian democracy has all that is required to address legitimate grievances. There can't be any comparison between Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir as "the former has a democratically elected government while the latter has seen a Pakistani diplomat arbitrarily appointed as its head", Indian officials said.

This is for the first time the UNHRC has issued a report on the alleged human rights violations in Kashmir and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.

With inputs from PTI