Our Special Correspondent
In the age of youth, when the youth movements have got worldwide attention, the role of youth in socio-economic development and nation building processes has increased at a global level. The Kashmir dispute is one of the serious issues in the world where youth have assumed central importance by providing their best efforts to shape ideology in one or other way. The people of Kashmir are struggling for their right to “self-determination” on different fronts. On each front, the youth of Kashmir are playing an active and important role.
In IIOJK, innocent civilians in particular the educated youth are being killed ruthlessly by Indian forces during fake encounters, cordons and search operations that go unabated. Targeted killing of Kashmiri youth amounts to systematic genocide.
The history of Kashmir will remain incomplete without the chapter of Burhan Wani because he is a glittering star of the liberation struggle. India’s inhuman methods to subjugate the Kashmiri people through killings, torture, forced disappearances and incarcerations have failed in the past and will not succeed in the future.
More than 609 innocent Kashmiris have so far been martyred by the Indian occupation forces in staged encounters, since India’s illegal and unilateral actions of 05 August 2019. The intensified killing spree in IIOJK is a clear manifestation of India using state- terrorism as policy tool against the Kashmiris. Indian Occupation Forces have stepped up extra-judicial killings of Kashmiris, particularly targeting Kashmiri youth, following the mala-fide conviction and sentencing of Hurriyat leader Mr. Yasin Malik in a grossly suspicious and contrived case. Indian Occupation Forces continue to operate with complete impunity under draconian laws such as Public Safety Act (PSA), Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), and Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). Extra-judicial killings of young men, including teenage boys, and refusal to return human remains of those martyred is completely unlawful and reflects the moral bankruptcy of Indian Occupation Forces.
The gross and systematic HRVs perpetrated by the Indian Occupation Forces in IIOJK warrant investigation by the UN Commission of inquiry as recommended by the OHCHR in its reports of 2018 and 2019.
