Mr. Chair,
We thank the Special Rapporteur for his briefing.
2. The right to life is inviolable. This right is being flagrantly violated but in conflicts, including situations of foreign occupation. In Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJ&K) its occupation forces are engaged in a campaign of killing eminent Kashmiris to silence the demand for freedom and self-determination. Such killings is conducted in fake encounters and cordon and search operations with impunity. There are gross violations of international law, including international humanitarian law, criminal law and human rights law, says a press release received here today from New York.
3. In IIOJ&K such extrajudicial killings of civilians is an instrument of policy of the occupying power which include, organized massacres, fake encounters, targeted killings, custodial deaths, indiscriminate use of force, cordon and search operations and enforced disappearances.
4. Since 1989, more than one hundred thousand civilians including, men, women and children have been killed extrajudicially. Not a single Indian soldier or official has been punished for such extrajudicial killings.
5. Draconian laws have been deployed to provide impunity to Indian occupation forces, including Arms Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). The Former Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Mr. Christof Heyns, has termed the provisions of AFSPA in IIOJ&K a violation of “international standards on use of force, including lethal force, and the related principles of proportionality and necessity.”
6. We would like to seek views of the Special Rapporteur:
(a) In the absence of lack of access to the occupied territory, how can independent and credible investigations be carried out by human rights mechanisms into the thousands of extrajudicial killings of Kashmiris.
(b) What measures can be undertaken to prohibit the use of lethal force, including pellet guns against civilians and prevent extrajudicial killings in IIOJ&K?
I thank you.
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