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Kashmiris in London protest against rights violation in PoK

H S Rao in London

Braving inclement weather, scores of Kashmiris held a noisy demonstration in front of the Pakistani high commission in London on Monday evening to protest against alleged human rights violations in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

Provoked by the "arrest and inhuman treatment" of Jammu & Kashmir National Liberation Front president Shaukat Maqbool Butt and 13 others in Islamabad, the demonstrators demanded the withdrawal of Pakistani armed forces from PoK and immediate release of all Kashmiri nationalist leaders arrested in Islamabad, Gilgit and Baltistan.

The protestors, led by JKNLF (Europe) president Khwaja Mushtaq Hussain, also demanded the setting up of an inquiry into the conduct of those officials responsible for "these illegal arrests and detentions".

Comprising Kashmiris from both sides of the Line of Control in the divided state, the protestors associated with nine Kashmiri organisations reminded Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, in a memorandum that the people of PoK "have been denied for the last 53 years" the right to franchise.

In the memorandum, the protestors said the arrest of Butt and 13 others and their detention in Rawalpindi's Adyala Jail in "most inhuman conditions" amounted to the "suppression of the basic human rights of the citizens of Jammu Kashmir, including Gilgit and Baltistan."

PTI

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