ISLAMABAD: The foreign office of Pakistan on Sunday condemned the arrest of two Islamic scholars along with five members of the Jamaat-e-Islami party in Indian-administered Kashmir while accusing the administration in New Delhi of trying to wipe out the religious and cultural identity of the residents of the region.
According to the Indian media, Abdul Rashid Dawoodi and Mushtaq Ahmed Veeri were arrested in Jammu and Kashmir under the Public Safety Act (PSA) which allows the security forces in Kashmir to detain people for up to two years.
Both clerics have a significant social media following and are revered by people in Kashmir.
The Jamaat-e-Islami party was also banned in the region by the Indian authorities only a few months before they revoked the special constitutional status of Kashmir in 2019 since they suspected that the political faction could “escalate the secessionist movement” in the region.
“These arrests have marked a new low in the Indian occupation forces’ blatant and continued onslaught on the human rights of the innocent Kashmiris,” said the foreign office. “The illegal detention of the Kashmiri Islamic scholars while the true representatives of the Kashmiri people are already under Indian custody under fictitious cases and on fallacious grounds, is yet another Indian attempt to rob the Kashmiri people of their distinct religious and cultural identity.”
This combination of photos shows Kashmiri Muslim clerics Abdul Rashid Dawoodi and Mushtaq Ahmed Veeri. (Photo courtesy: @CellJammu/Twitter)
The statement noted that Indian authorities were “apprehensive of widespread protests and unrest” in Kashmir while adding the two scholars and their companions had not only been “unjustifiably arrested” but also shifted from Kashmir to a prison in the Hindu-majority Jammu region.
“These politically motivated arrests are clearly meant to stifle the voice of the Muslims of IIOJK [Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu Kashmir] and further marginalize them,” it added.
The foreign office sought immediate release of the religious scholars and other Kashmiri prisoners while urging the international community “to take note of the dangerously growing trajectory of Islamophobia in India.”
It added that Muslims of India were denied space to freely practice their faith as Hindu nationalists attacked their worship places.
