NEW YORK: Pakistan has urged the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Children to remain focused on the suffering of children in Indian occupied Kashmir (IoK), saying that the children were going through the worst form of atrocities unleashed by Indian forces.
“Over the past 70 years, succeeding generations of Kashmiri children have suffered the Indian atrocities,” Aamir Khan, deputy permanent representative of Pakistan to the UN, said in the General Assembly’s Third Committee.
Aamir Khan was commenting on the annual report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict, Virginia Gamba. The report, which was released in June, expressed deep concern over the Indian atrocities against children in IoK.
The report particularly cited 68 verified instances where children between the ages of 9 and 17 have been detained by Indian security services on national security-related charges.
The Pakistani delegate said, “We are not surprised by such findings. Over the past 70 years, the children are have suffered the brutality of Indian forces.”
“In the wake of India’s illegal and unilateral actions of August 5 last year, these atrocities have intensified,” Amir Khan said, adding that the international community must bring an end to this culture of impunity.
“The international community should urge India to immediately end such practices and take preventive measures to protect children, including by ending the use of pellets against children,” he concluded.
