Geneva, October 14, 2018 (PPI-OT):Jammu and Kashmir Council for Human Rights President Dr Syed Nazir Gilani through a letter drew the attention of India’s National Human Rights Commission towards the illegal detention of Dukhtaran-e-Millat Chairperson Aasiya Andrabi and her two associates Fehmeeda Sofi and Nahida Nasreen languishing in New Delhi’s Tihar jail.
While contending the New Delhi-based National Investigation Agency’s allegations against the Kashmiri women leader, Dr Gilani said, “We don’t believe that the three Kashmiri Muslim women, clad in Burqa, in their number and in the quality of any kind of training are able to wage a war against a nuclear state and prevail on the world’s 3rd largest army. India keeps around 500,000 to 700,000 armed forces in Kashmir and United Nations has described the State as world’s most militarized place.”
Full text of the letter is as follows:
“JKCHR wishes to respectfully submit the following for your urgent attention and action: Aasiya Andrabi, who heads a women’s organization in a male dominated political habitat of Jammu and Kashmir and her two associates Fehmeeda Sofi and Nahida Nasreen, were arrested and removed from Kashmir, to Delhi by NIA in July 2018. The three Kashmiri Muslim women political activists have been charged for allegedly “waging war against the country and delivering hate speeches in Jammu and Kashmir.”
JKCHR has raised the subject at the 39th session of UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, in a document circulated as General Assembly Document A/HRC/39/NGO/138 dated 3 September 1018. We are concerned that the removal of these three Muslim women from their hitherto only known climate and lodging them in Tihar jail in Delhi, may embed a policy to subject them to an “inhumane and degrading treatment.
We don’t believe that the three Kashmiri Muslim women, clad in Burqa, in their number and in the quality of any kind of training are able to wage a war against a nuclear state and prevail on the world’s 3rd largest army. India keeps around 500,000 to 700,000 armed forces in Kashmir and United Nations has described the State as world’s most militarized place.
Aasiya Andrabi and her two associates reside in a part of the territory currently ‘administered’ by India. The position of the State has been set out by the Government of India in her submissions at the UN Security Council on 15 January 1948 and further by the UN Security Council in its Resolution of 30 March 1951. Philippines has flagged the issue at the 773rd meeting of Security Council held on 20 February 1957 and has emphasised, “Under the circumstances and pending the holding of a plebiscite, neither India nor Pakistan can claim sovereignty over the State of Jammu and Kashmir.
The jurisprudence of the habitat where the three Kashmiri Muslim women reside, is explained in the case of Meagher Singh VS The State of Jammu and Kashmir decided in May 1953 by a Division Bench of J and K High Court and further illustrated in
“The State Autonomy Committee” report published in July 2000. The Committee was constituted vide Government order No. 1164-GD of 19996 dated 29.11.1996.JKCHR inscribes its interest in the three Kashmiri Muslim women, and respectfully requests as follows:
(1) That for reasons of health, culture and faith, the three be returned to Srinagar, which is their natural habitat and due process of law be carried out there.
(2) That the authorities be cautioned on the manner in which the three citizen of the State of Jammu and Kashmir have been charged for “waging a war” and have subjected them to a loss of liberty. It is requested that National Human Rights Commission constitutes a panel to visit Aasiya Andrabi and her two associates, to ensure that their removal from Srinagar was not in any manner a colourful exercise to subject them to “inhumane and degrading treatment” in Tihar jail in Delhi and ensure their removal back to Srinagar.
You are respectfully requested to very kindly look into the matter.”
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