Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday said that he is puzzled by the international media’s focus on the protests in Hong Kong, while it ignores the “dire human rights crisis” in “Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir”. Khan’s tweet came days after he met Chinese President Xi Jinping and discussed the Kashmir matter.
“I am puzzled as to how international media continues to give headline coverage to Hong Kong protests but ignores the dire human rights crisis in IOJK – an internationally recognised disputed territory illegally annexed by India with 900,000 troops imposing a siege on 8 million Kashmiris,” Khan tweeted.
India had on August 5 revoked the special status granted to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution, and had imposed a curfew in the state, which partly continues to this day. India also split Jammu and Kashmir into two Union territories.
Khan also told people at a “human chain” event in Islamabad that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has “played his last card” by abrogating the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, Dawn reported. The event was held to express solidarity with the people of Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir.
“He [Modi] doesn’t know that what the Kashmiri people have faced in the last several decades, it has eliminated the fear of death among them,” Khan told the gathering. “Tens of thousands of Kashmiri people will not accept the decision and come out when the curfew is lifted.”
“I want to highlight the issue of double standards as Kashmir is not a part of India and Hong Kong is a part of China but the proportion of coverage of the Kashmiri people is very less as compared to the issue of Hong Kong,” he said. “Our movement is for the human rights of the Kashmiri people; God willing it will become massive.”
Khan had last month asked the United Nations General Assembly to intervene in Kashmir, and tell India to end the curfew. However, during an interview with CNN, he also expressed the fear that there would be a massacre in Kashmir after the restrictions were lifted.
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