Pakistani raised with senior UN officials the latest round of atrocities by Indian troops which involved targeting a civilian passenger bus and an ambulance in Kashmir, with its top diplomat calling the attacks a grave violation of international humanitarian law.
Reports in the day said Indian heavy shelling killed ten civilians and three Pakistani troops on the Pakistani side of the disputed Kashmir region, divided by the Line of Control between the two nulcear-armed South Asian countries.
Dr. Maleeha Lodhi, Islamabad’s UN Ambassador, said the attack on an ambulance trying to evacuate the injured was was a particularly “abhorrent act” that was a breach of the most fundamental legal and humanitarian laws.
She briefing the Deputy Secretary General, Jan Eliasson, and the Chef de Cabinet of the Secretary General, Edmond Mulet on the attacks on Wednesday, the situation posed a “grave threat to international peace and security,”.
According to Pakistan’s Mission to the UN, the diplomat told UN officials that escalating tensions on the Line of Control was a deliberate attempt by India to divert the attention of the international community from the gross human right violations being committed by the occupation army in Indian held Kashmir.
Ambassador Lodhi told UN officials that a particularly deplorable aspect of the latest escalation was the deliberate targeting by Indian troops of innocent civilians.
The Pakistani envoy reminded the officials of the UN’s obligations in this regard and urged them to live up to hese commitments.
UN officials shared Pakistan’s concern that the escalating situation could spin out control, a statement by the Pakistani Mission said.
The UN Department of Peace-Keeping Operations was separately asked to mobilize UNMOGIP to effectively monitor the Line of Control and the Working Boundary as a step to help deescalate tensions between India and Pakistan.
In July this year, the Indian-controled Kashmir saw a spontaneous indigenous uprising of the people after Indian forces responded to protests with brutal force over killing of a Kashmiri youth leader, seen as a leader by Kashmiris and as a separatist by New Delhi.
Since then Indian forces have maimed, killed and blinded hundreds of Kashmiris in a stern clampdown, which has crippled life in Kashmir valley.
At the UN, Ambassador Lodhi asked officials to not only take action to halt the human rights abuses being committed by Indian forces but also to act before the escalating tensions snowball into a full-fledged crisis, according to the statement.
In recent months statements by the UN Secretary General have repeatedly called for deescalation of tensions between Pakistan and India but New Delhi has ignored these and continues to act with impunity in the disputed territory of Kashmir.
