All Parties Hurriyat Conference-AJK (APHC-AJK) convener Ghulam Muhammad Safi has called upon the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to take urgent action against the alarming human rights situation in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, where India has intensified its systematic assault on Kashmiri identity since August 2019. 

Speaking before the Council while representing the World Muslim Congress (WMC), Ghulam Muhammad Safi said Indian forces have killed at least 600 civilians since the revocation of Article 370, including five unarmed youth in Baramulla during a military operation in March 2025 and the extrajudicial killing of Javeed Ahmed of Babdipora district on September 17, 2025. He drew attention to thousands of unmarked graves documented by the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, warning that mass grave sites continue to expand.

He added that more than 5,000 Kashmiris, some as young as 16, remain illegally detained under draconian laws such as the Public Safety Act (PSA) and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). “Prominent political leaders including Muhammad Yasin Malik, Shabbir Shah, Masarrat Aalam Butt, and Nayeem Ahmad Khan are languishing in Tihar Jail under harsh conditions, with deteriorating health and no access to family visits,” Safi said. 

He expressed grave concern over India’s ongoing demographic engineering, revealing that over 4.2 million domicile certificates have been issued to non-Kashmiris since 2020. Alongside, new land laws have enabled the confiscation of more than 40,000 acres of ancestral orchard and forest land, reclassified under the pretext of strategic purposes. Safi regretted that three decades of impunity have resulted in more than 100,000 killings, 8,000 enforced disappearances, and widespread sexual violence by Indian forces.

He added that Kashmiri culture itself is facing an existential threat, with shrines demolished, villages renamed, and public mourning criminalized. “This is not counter-terrorism; it is the deliberate erasure of a people and their heritage,” the WMC stressed. The Hurriyat leader urged the UN Human Rights Council to establish an independent international investigative mechanism to document Indian war crimes in IIOJK and act decisively to prevent the extinction of Kashmiri identity.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)