PM raises concern as Kashmiri leader Yasin Malik goes on hunger strike

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday said the continued persecution of Hurriyat leader Yasin Malik by India was part of a plan to deprive Kashmiris of their representative voices.

In a statement on social media site Twitter, the prime minister voiced concerns over the fabricated cases and sham trials of the Kashmiri leaders by India.

He said the impunity with which India is violating human rights of political workers should alarm right defenders.

“From fabricated cases to sham trial, impunity with which India is violating human rights of political workers should alarm rights defenders, ” he stated

Mushaal Malik, the wife Yasin Malik, said her husband has announced an indefinite hunger strike from today if his demands for a fair trial and physical presence in the courts were not met.

The continued persecution of Hurriyat leader Yasin Malik by India is part of a plan to deprive Kashmiris of their representative voices. From fabricated cases to sham trial, impunity with which India is violating human rights of political workers should alarm rights defenders.

— Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) July 22, 2022

The JKLF leader is serving a life sentence in a so-called terror funding case after a sham trial. Yasin Malik has filed an application demanding personal appearance in the cases against him.

The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front in a statement in Srinagar stated that Malik’s non-presentation in court is illegal, barbaric and undemocratic.

Pakistan has strongly condemned India for implicating Yasin Malik in two more “three decades old fictitious cases in a clear attempt to politically victimise him and forcing him to observe hunger strike unto death”.

In a statement, the Foreign Office said Malik was already serving a life sentence awarded to him after a “sham trial” by an Indian court on May 25, 2022.

“Yasin Malik is also being denied the right of personal appearance in the ongoing trial, in complete contravention of legal and democratic norms,” the Foreign Office regretted.

It said India had employed the judiciary as a tool to damage the morale of Kashmiris by subjecting their leadership to “flagrant prejudice”.

The statement noted that Yasin Malik, having been left with no legal recourse, eventually took the “desperate decision of going on a hunger strike unto death from July 22, 2022.”

It further said the inhuman incarceration of Malik, his sham trials under fabricated cases, his fallacious conviction and the malfeasant attempts at defiling the legitimate struggle of the Kashmiris for their right to self-determination as “terrorism” is nothing but further corroboration of India’s known credentials of being a serial violator of human rights.

“The Kashmiris’ struggle for the right of self-determination is indigenous and cannot be dampened by the draconian strong-arm tactics of the Indian government.”

It urged the Indian government to refrain from “victimising the true representatives of Kashmiri people by way of inhuman detentions and implication in baseless cases”.

The FO called upon the international community to take cognisance of “India’s inhuman and illegal detention and treatment of Malik and ensure that the Kashmiris are given the opportunity to exercise their right to self-determination as espoused under the relevant UNSC resolutions”.

Pakistan demanded that India must release all political prisoners detained on trumped-up charges, stop human rights violations in IIOJK, and revoke the “brutal military siege”.

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