On Human Rights Day, Over 500 Signatories Express Solidarity With Kashmir thewire.in

More than 500 signatories on Tuesday, which is observed as Human Rights Day, have issued a statement condemning the continued clampdown in Kashmir after Article 370 was diluted and Jammu and Kashmir was bifurcated into two Union Territories. The signatories are women, women’s groups and members of women’s movements.

“More than 125 days later, many are still being held without charges or trial, under administrative detention laws such as the Public Safety Act, 1978 while the grounds of detention and whereabouts of a large number, including children as young as ten, remain unknown. An unknown number of people have been moved to prisons outside the state of Jammu & Kashmir,” the statement says.

The signatories said that while the government declares “that all is ‘normal’”, they said there is mounting evidence of a “healthcare and humanitarian crisis, civilian deaths and blindings and other injuries in pellet gun attacks by Indian security forces, torture, molestations, and the severe curtailment of freedom of opinion, expression, and information; assembly and movement; and religious freedoms”.