34th Session of United Nations Human Rights Council

Agenda Item 5, General Debate

Speaker Shagufta Ashraf

Mr. President

Rebellion against Illegal Indian Occupation over kashmir is neither new nor surprising
and the brutality of the states response is equally familiar. In a matter of last summer
2016,occupation forces with a clear mandate to be unsparing and wounded over 17000
innocent kashmiris. One of the youngest 5 years Zohra from Srinagar with lacerations to
her abdomen and legs.14 years old Insha was in the family kitchen when a swarm of
pellets pierced her face.4 girls aged between 13 and 18 were shot in their faces and the
prognosis for the youngest of these 13 years old Irfa Jan, are few of the examples i
quoted Mr. President.

In the slaughterhouse of Jammu and Kashmir even the grievously injured with pellet
scarred eyes or broken limbs have remained defiant against states illegal occupation
over Jammu and Kashmir. Showers of metal pellets unleashed upon protesters,
bystanders and homebound women and school children.

Mr.President

So called Largest democracy of the world cannot shower projectiles that target eyes
and viscera on a people it considers and forcefully claimed its own. In snatching away,
the vision of Kashmiri children, youth, and women, the Indian state has decisively
announced that it has only one message; You must be servile and submissive and if
you refuse we will unleash our fury.

J&K has lost its children and youth in the current mayhem.It has lost its tomorrow.The
dale is in the state of mourning, wailing for its departed children , it's vision less children
its detained children and its offend children.We see bullets , we see men , women and
children crying , We see death every where in J& K

I urge this council to hear the heart-rending cries of the people of Kashmir for the
protection from the brutalities they are subjected to.

Thank you
34th Session of United Nations Human Rights Council
Agenda Item 4, General Debate

Speaker Shagufta Ashraf

Mr. President

People of Jammu and Kashmir were promised a plebiscite. Its been 69 years! How
many more innocent people need to die at the hands of Occupation Forces before
Kashmiris are allowed to exercise their right to self-determination?

Mr. President

Banning is one of the easiest persuasions of democracy in Kashmir. The idea is to

police your thought. This is what Occupation State always does to make travesty of all
democratic traditions in a place often hailed as its atoot ang or inseparable limb. Even
the most crazed of psychopaths would not mutilate their own limb.

Over the last more than 7 months more than 147 innocent civilians some too young for
even beards, have been slayed in the valley. Close to 17000 protesters lay injured,
hundreds of them blinded by high-velocity pellet guns that the occupation forces use
indiscriminately, with zero regard to life and limb. Ambulances ferrying the injured to
hospitals have come under attack. Women protesters dragged by their plaits in the
alleys of Srinagar J&K.

Small metal pellets, a "non-lethal" weapon for crowd-control, have injured hundreds of
Kashmiri children ,women and youth.Their faces are scarred. Their eyes are damaged
or simply gone, replaced with prosthetics. And their psychological wounds run deeper
still. Some of those injured were protesters, others just bystanders.

Photojournalist Xuhaib Maqbool ended up losing vision in his left eye as he shot images
of protesters chanting slogans and demanding freedom.Metal pellets, shot by the
occupation forces, wounded Faisal Ahmad during a raid in his village in Karimabad.
Suhail Ahmad was wounded by metal pellets during a protest.He lost eyesight in one
eye and was left with a scarred face. "My life has been ruined, what can I be now?"
He asks Mr. President from this August forum.

Danish Rajab asks, "My left eye is completely damaged and with my right eye I can only
see some sort of shadows, not clear vision.What would I do now?
Tanveer lost eyesight in his right eye because of metal pellet injuries. "I was only
earning hand of my family. I feel like the living dead." he says." Mr.President.
I urge this esteem forum that such brutal situation in J&K needs council's special
attention.
Thank you
34th Session of United Nations Human Rights Council
Agenda Item 3 ,General Debate
Speaker Shagufta Ashraf
Mr. President

The killing of a freedom movement leader Burhan wani sparked a series of spontaneous
demonstration and protests which in a matter of days turned into a reinvigorated popular
revolt against State's dominion over disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir and the
entire population spent last summer under the longest curfew in the history of curfews in
J&K. Occupation forces responded with lethal effect, firing bullets ,CS gas and metal
pellets into the crowds .In less than 3 days only ,nearly 50 innocent protesters were
killed and thousands injured. More people came out to the streets to protest against
these killings and the occupation forces killed and injured more of them and figure
swelled to 383 including a young kashmiri academic who was battered to death by
occupation forces and an 11 years old boy faisal whose body riddled with hundreds of
pellets was found on the outskirts of Srinagar.

Children as young as 4 and 5 Zohra and Nasir and many more like these two have
multiple pellets in their retinas blinding them partially or fully for life time.

Mr. President

This is an unprecedented expression of state's violence. There is no other recorded

instance of a modern democracy systematically and willfully shooting at people to blind
them.

Mr. President

How is it all right for a constitutionally democratic and secular modern nation to blind
scores of civilians in a region it controls?

Not an authoritarian state, not a crackpot dictatorship, not a rogue nation or warlord
outside of legal and ethical commitments to the International statutes but a democratic
country, a member of the comity of nations, committing genocide of Kashmiris for
demanding their right to self determination.

How are leaders, thinkers of the state and its thundering televised custodians of public
and private morality, all untroubled by the sight of a child whose heart has been
penetrated by metal pellets?
US-based rights group Physicians for Human Rights has said in his report that Indian
security forces used "indiscriminate" against protesters in Kashmir.The group pointed to
the use of shotguns that fired pellets, which caused blindness.

Mr. President.

I urge this council to interrogate the circumstances that have led to the deliberate
blinding of hundreds of young women and children at the hands of occupation forces in
J&k.

Thank you Mr. President