Nation to emerge stronger from challenge

Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Tuesday directed all military commanders to step up relief operations across the country to ease difficulties of people hit by coronavirus pandemic, the Inter-Services Public Relations said. He expressed the hope that the nation would emerge stronger from the challenge. He was chairing Corps Commanders’ Conference at the General Headquarters which was attended by top commanders through video link from their respective headquarters. “Appreciat-ing the troops in the field for efforts so far, General Qamar Javed Bajwa directed all commanders to extend maximum assistance in moving critical resources and reaching out to mitigate suffering of people in far flung areas including GB, AJK, interior Sindh and Balochistan,” the communiqué added. The military’s top brass were apprised on functioning of the National Command and Operation Centre “established to synergize and articulate national effort for containment of Covid-19”.
The forum also paid tributes to those on frontline including doctors, paramedics, health care workers and law enforcement agencies for braving the pandemic under challenging environment, the ISPR said. The Corps commanders also paid tribute to the “Kashmiris people who are fighting the pandemic under Indian atrocities and struggling for their just cause of self- determination”. There is good news that six leading global human rights bodies have jointly called upon the Indian government to release all the unjustly detained Kashmiris of the Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJ&K) on priority, besides ensuring protection of their basic human rights to health, liberty, freedom of movement. The demands were made by Amnesty International India, Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA), Alliance for Citizen Participation, International Commissions of Jurists (ICJ), International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT).
Reminding the Indian authorities about their international obligations, these rights groups demanded to immediately release all arbitrarily detained prisoners in the (IOJ&K), including journalists, human rights defenders, political leaders and others detained simply for expressing critical or dissenting views, and all those arrested after August 5 last year. It was also demanded of the Indian government to ensure that safeguards against torture and ill-treatment of people in custody, including access to lawyers and medical examinations, were maintained during the COVID-19 emergency and restore full access to high speed internet in IOJ&K. The statement said the fate of hundreds of arbitrarily detained Kashmiri prisoners hanged in the balance as the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in India passed the 4,000 mark and many more were likely to remain undetected or unreported. Last month, Indian home ministry revealed that 7,357 persons had been arrested in IOJ&K since August 5, 2019.
Meanwhile, the World Kashmir Awareness Forum (WKAF), a prominent Washington-based advocacy organization, has condemned India for the introduction of an “illegal” law in Jammu and Kashmir that would change the disputed state’s Muslim-majority status at a time when the world is busy grappling with the deadly coronavirus pandemic. In a statement issued on Friday, the forum called the ‘Jammu & Kashmir Reorganization Order, 2020’ “tendentious and politically motivated.” Under it, the citizens of India will now be able to settle in and compete for jobs in the disputed territory of Jammu & Kashmir. The statement called the law a “wanton display of disregard for the aspiration of the Kashmiris that is aimed at constitutional entrenchment of a Hindu majoritarian agenda to dispossess the people of Kashmir.