SRINAGAR: Indian occupation forces martyred five Kashmiris in Indian occupied Kashmir’s Shopian district on Saturday, according to media reports.
The citizens were martyred during a cordon and search operation in Shopian district’s Killora village.
The Indian army along with the police had launched a joint operation in the area on Friday evening.
On Friday, at least two Kashmiri youth were martyred by Indian troops in IoK’s Sopore district during a violent cordon and search operation in the district. The Indian occupation forces had also suspended internet service and shut down educational institutes in the Baramulla district.
The casualties in the latest attack take the total number of martyrdoms of Kashmiris over the last three days to nine.
Earlier this year, in June, a United Nations report accused India of having used excessive force in occupied Kashmir to martyr and wound civilians since 2016, as it called for an international inquiry into the accusations of rights violations.
The first UN report on human rights in IoK focuses mainly on serious violations in the region from July 2016 to April 2018.
Activists estimate that up to 145 civilians were martyred by security forces and up to 20 civilians martyred by armed groups in the same period, it said.
“In responding to demonstrations that started in 2016, Indian security forces used excessive force that led to unlawful killings and a very high number of injuries,” the report said.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein called for maximum restraint and denounced the lack of prosecutions of Indian forces in Jammu and Kashmir due to a 1990 law giving them what he called “virtual immunity”.
In a statement, Zeid called for a commission of inquiry by the Human Rights Council, which opens a three-week session in Geneva on Monday, into all violations. Alleged sites of mass graves in the Kashmir Valley and Jammu should be investigated, he said.
India rejected the report, calling it a “selective compilation of largely unverified information” that sought to build “a false narrative”, adding that it violated the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
