Daily Archives: May 18, 2023

ISLAMABAD, LATEST, WORLD

India boosts security for G20 meeting in held Kashmir

NEW DELHI: Security has been stepped up in India-held Jammu and Kashmir by the BJP government amid a surge in attacks ahead of a G20 meeting in the disputed territory.

Srinagar is due to host a tourism working group meeting of G20 members on May 22-24, part of a series of meetings before a G20 summit scheduled to be held in New Delhi in September.

Srinagar has been at the center of an uprising by Kashmiri fighters against Indian occupation since 1989. Tens of thousands of people have been killed although the violence has been reduced in recent years.

Indian officials said they fear Kashmiri fighters could try to promote their cause with an attack before or during the G20 meeting. “The timing of attacks is worrisome as they are planned just before the G20 meeting,” said an Indian army officer requesting anonymity.

Military and police officers said they had intelligence information that Kas­hmiris might target a military-run school in Jammu and take students hostage.

In response, all such schools had been shut and classes moved online until after the G20 meeting, they said.

Security agencies are not taking any chances in Srinagar, officers said.

Vijay Kumar, chief of police in the Kashmir Valley, said that commandos had been deployed in the city and members of a counter-terrorism force would be stationed in various places.

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ISLAMABAD, LATEST, WORLD

UN EXPERT STATEMENT ON IIOJK AHEAD OF G20 MEETING

UN Special Rapporteur Fernand de Varennes has exposed the nefarious designs of the Modi led fascist Indian government to host G-20 summit in IIOJK. According to de Varennes, G-20 is unwittingly providing a veneer of support to a facade of normalcy at a time when massive human rights violations, illegal and arbitrary arrests, political persecutions, restrictions and even suppression of free media and human rights defenders continue to escalate.

UN Rapporteur described the massive human rights violations including as torture, extrajudicial killings, denial of political participation rights of Kashmiri Muslims and minorities, following the suspension of democratic rights and local elections with direct rule from New Delhi on 06 August 2019. “Human right violation has risen dramatically in IIOJK since 2019 when Indian government revoked the special status of the region”. Fernand de Varennes said that holding a G20 meeting in occupied Jammu and Kashmir while massive human rights violations are ongoing is lending support to attempts by India to normalize the brutal and repressive denial of democratic and other rights of Kashmiri Muslims and minorities. 

The Independent expert noted that there have been reports of significant numbers of Hindus from outside the region moving into the region so that dramatic demographic charges are under way in Jammu and Kashmir to overwhelm native Kashmiris in their own land. “In 2021, UN independence experts transmitted a communication to Indian government and expressed grave concerns over the loss of political autonomy and the implementation of the new domicile rules which could alter the demographic composition of the former state Jammu and Kashmir.

” Modi-led fascist Indian regime is maliciously hosting the G20 meeting of the working group on tourism from 22 May – 24 May in Srinagar to mislead the world about the prevailing grave human rights situation in IIOJK and to legitimize its illegal unilateral actions of 05th August 2019. 

ISLAMABAD, LATEST, WORLD

MECCA MASJID HYDERABAD BOMBING 2007

Mecca Masjid Hyderabad bombing occurred on 18 May 2007 during Friday prayers in which more than 50 people were injured and 14 had lost their lives. Ten persons allegedly belonging to extremist Hindutva groups were named as accused in the case. However, only five of them were arrested and faced trial in the case. Exposing the nexus between the ruling BJP and RSS, the ex-Indian home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde revealed in 2013 that they were behind the Samjhauta Express, Malegaon and Mecca Masjid blasts.

Central Bureau of Investigation produced Swami Aseemanand before the Court on 19 November 2010 in connection with the blast. Indian ‘Tehelka’ magazine had obtained a copy of 42 pages’ confession report. According to his confession, many of those involved in the bombing were members of RSS. Similarly, an RSS militant Kamal Chauhan was arrested for carrying out the Samjhauta Express attack in 2007 who had instead blamed the Muslim groups. Chauhan and other activists were also found to be involved in the Ajmer Dargah blast, Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid, as well as the Malegaon Mosque Blast.

NIA Officer-in-charge of the case Pratibha Ambedkar was immediately removed and the judge who wrote the verdict was forced to resign. Indian government continued to systemize its ideological vision of a Hindu state at national and state level through the use of both existing and new laws and structural changes hostile to the country’s religious minorities. Recently, US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has urged the State Department to place India on the US list of “countries of particular concern”.

The independent bipartisan panel accused India of “engaging in and tolerating systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom”.

ISLAMABAD, LATEST, WORLD

“China and Turkey likely to skip tourism meet in controversial Indian territory, as other countries opt for low-level attendance”

The upcoming tourism working group meeting in Srinagar, Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, may experience a lack of attendance from G20 member countries like China and Türkiye. According to Hindustan Times, even G20 member states and guest countries invited by India to participate will only have low-level representation at the event.

Diplomats from their respective embassies in New Delhi are expected to attend instead of officials from their capitals. Among the countries possibly represented by low-level officials are Saudi Arabia and Mexico. This isn’t the first time China has skipped a G20 meeting, having expressed dissatisfaction over the event held in Arunachal Pradesh in March. The UN Charter states that holding an international event in the disputed territory is a violation.

Meanwhile, India has turned the entire occupied territory into a fort ahead of the G20 meeting in Srinagar. The Indian forces, in the name of security measures for the meeting, have accelerated the unjustified actions of siege and search and the lives of the Kashmiris, who were already victims of Indian state terrorism, have become more difficult.

The All Parties Hurriyat Conference has called for a strike on May 22 in the occupied territory against the holding of the meeting. It said through the said meeting India actually wants to justify its illegal actions and wants to give the impression to the international community that the situation in IIOJK is fine.