Chairman Kashmir Council Europe (KC-EU) Mr Ali Raza Syed has condemned assassination of renowned Kashmiri Journalist Syed Shujaat Bukhari in Srinagar, the capital of Indian Held Kashmir (IHK) on Thursday.
The unknown gunmen shot dead the editor-in-chief of Jammu and Kashmir based newspaper “Rising Kashmir”) outside his office at Press Avenue in Srinagar on Thursday’s evening. He received multiple bullets in his head and abdomen. Shujaat Bukhari was accompanied by his two personal security guards. They were also attacked and taken to hospital. One of the guards later succumbed in hospital.
In a condolence message Chairman Kashmir Council EU Mr Ali Raza Syed said, this brutal attack has shaken all Kashmiris specially the entire Kashmiri journalist community.
According to him, Shujaat Bukhari has contributed a lot by his participation in several conferences for peace in the Kashmir in Pakistan and India as well in other parts of the World. He also attended some of events arranged by Kashmir Council EU in Brussels, the EU headquarters. According to Mr Ali Raza Syed who hosted Shujaat Bukhari in Brussels, he even had telephonic conversation with him last week.
The murder of the veteran Kashmiri journalist took place at the time when UN’s Human Rights body issued a comprehensive report on human rights abuses in IHK.
The United Nations in its first-ever human rights report on Jammu and Kashmir has called for an urgent need to address past and ongoing human rights violations and abuses and deliver justice to all people in Kashmir.
The main focus of the report released by the United Nations Human Rights Office in Geneva, today, remained on the human rights situation in the Indian occupied Kashmir from July 2016 to April 2018. It said that people of Kashmir had been suffering a conflict for seven decades that had claimed or ruined numerous lives. The 49-page report by the UN on the human rights situation in Kashmir highlights a situation of chronic impunity for violations committed by Indian forces.
The UN’s report is highly appreciable move by the United Nation’s body which exposed the a large scale human rights violations committed by the Indian forces in IHK, Ali Raza Syed.
Chairman Kashmir Council EU asked UN to pressure India for implementation of UN’s resolution on Kashmir in order provide right of self-determination to the people of Kashmir.
The UN’s report also mentioned the Kunanposhpora mass rape, enforced disappearances, unmarked mass graves and use of pellet guns by the Indian troops and impunity given to the forces’ personnel under draconian law, Armed Forces Special Powers Act.
The international community should immediately intervene and stop human rights violation in IHK and play its effective role for just resolution of Jammu and Kashmir dispute, Chairman Kashmir Council EU urged.
