Srinagar
Union Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday dubbed the recent assessment report by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Kashmir as baseless, a news gatherer IANS reported.
“The report (on Kashmir) is prepared sitting somewhere else. The assessment made by the UNHRC is without basis. If only they see what is on the ground. Indian Army shows the maximum restraint,” IANS quoted Sitharaman as saying.
“It (the Army) has set up schools, trained boys and girls for higher education, made youth from the state to travel to the rest of India. All that has been ignored.”
Asked about Guterres backing report and calling it the voice of the UN, Sitharaman said India didn’t expect the world body chief to respond otherwise to the report written from “comfort zones”.
Hussien, whose term gets over at the end of 2018, asked the Human Rights Council to set up a Commission of Inquiry into the human rights situation in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Council has not taken up his suggestion at its session that ended last week.
The report said “Indian security forces used excessive force that led to unlawful killings and a very high number of injuries” in dealing with protests in the state.
The report raised the issue of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) that Hussien asserted gave security personnel “virtual impunity”, reported IANS.
