United Nations report on human rights violation in Kashmir baseless: Nirmala Sitharaman

The United Nations (UN) report on the human rights situation in Kashmir is baseless and without seeing the ground realities, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said here on Friday. On Thursday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had backed the report, and called for investigating the rights situation.

“I don’t expect the UNSG to say anything different. But the fact is it was a report prepared sitting somewhere else. Assessment by UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is without basis on the ground and without seeing the situation on the ground,” Ms. Sitharaman told presspersons at her South Block office.

The Minister said the report had ignored realities of how the Army had been exercising maximum restraint in fighting terrorists and curbing protests in Jammu and Kashmir.

Backing the UN Human Rights High Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein’s call for an international investigation into human rights situation in Kashmir, Mr. Guterres said, “As you can imagine all the action of the Human Rights High Commissioner is an action that represents the voice of the UN in relation.”

Last month, in its first ever report on the human rights situation in the State, the UNHRC alleged widespread rights abuse on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC). India had rejected the report as “fallacious”, and said it was overtly prejudiced and sought to build a false narrative.