Pakistan denounces arbitrary arrest of Islamic scholars in IoK

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has strongly condemned the arbitrary arrests and illegal detention of prominent Islamic scholars, including Maulana Abdul Rasheed Dawoodi, Maulana Mushtaq Ahmed Veeri and five members of Jamaat-e-Islami in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).

“These deplorable actions only days ahead of the UN General Assembly session manifest India’s growing intransigence, and utter disregard of human rights and fundamental freedoms,” the Foreign Office Spokesperson said in a press release.

Pakistan also called for the immediate release of these religious scholars and all other Kashmiri prisoners illegally detained by India.

“We also urge the international community to take note of the dangerously growing trajectory of Islamophobia in India, instigated at the behest of the BJP-RSS nexus, that is aimed at suppressing the Muslims of India, denying them space to freely practice their faith and attacking their places of worship,” it was added.

The spokesperson said that these arrests had marked a new low in the Indian occupation forces’ blatant and continued onslaught on the human rights of the innocent Kashmiris.

The illegal detention of the Kashmiri Islamic scholars while the true representatives of the Kashmiri people were already under Indian custody under fictitious cases and on fallacious grounds, was yet another Indian attempt to rob the Kashmiri people of their distinct religious and cultural identity.

“The reprehensible arrests of the Kashmiri Islamic scholars under the draconian Public Safety Act (PSA) that defies all international humanitarian laws and permits preventive detention for as many as two years without the need of any trial, is a deplorable preemptive step by the Indian authorities planning to illegally occupy the religiously significant ‘Waqf Board’ properties,” the spokesperson said.

It said that apprehensive of widespread protests and unrest in the face of such a malicious move, these scholars had not only been unjustifiably arrested but shifted from Kashmir to a prison in the Hindu-majority Jammu.

These politically motivated arrests were clearly meant to stifle the voice of the Muslims of IIOJK and further marginalize them. The foreign office added.

Kashmiri clerics arrested

Three prominent religious leaders, Maulana Abdul Rasheed Dawoodi, Mushtaq Ahmad Veeri and Abdul Majeed Dar Almadni, were arrested on 15 September and booked under draconian Public Safety Act by the occupation forces.

APHC leader and the Chairman of Democratic Political Movement Syed Bashir Andrabi has strongly denounced the illegal arrest of religious leaders and scholars by police in In Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

Syed Bashir Andrabi in a statement issued in Srinagar said India cannot tolerate when Hurriyat leaders and religious scholars the real face of New Delhi to the Kashmiris.

He said that the arrests of renowned scholars and religious leaders cannot intimidate the Kashmiris into submission. Indian rulers are mistaken if they think that through such brutal tactics they will be able to suppress the right to self-determination, he said.

The APHC leader said even if India detains all the people of Jammu and Kashmir in jails, still the Kashmiris will not give up their struggle for securing freedom from Indian yoke

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