ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s foreign office on Sunday severely criticized the Indian army, blaming it for the “barbaric custodial killing” earlier this week of three Kashmiris in the disputed territory administered by New Delhi.
Anger spread to remote parts of Indian-administered Kashmir on Saturday and Sunday after locals blamed the Indian Army for killing three Kashmiris they had detained for questioning on Friday.
Locals said the Indian army detained at least eight civilians on Friday for questioning, a day after rebels fighting against Indian rule ambushed two army vehicles in the southern Poonch district, killing four soldiers and wounding three others.
Locals accused Indian army personnel of torturing the three to death in a nearby military camp, whose bodies were later handed to the local police. Residents said the bodies bore marks of severe torture.
“Pakistan strongly condemns the barbaric custodial killing of three Kashmiri civilians in Baffliaz, Poonch district of the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK),” Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) said in a statement.
It said the Kashmiris were tortured to death at the Indian army’s camp. It added that a purported video clip showing the three soldiers stripping the men and sprinkling chili powder on them had gone viral on social media.
“The incident, once again, exposes India’s relentless state terrorism in IIOJK,” MoFA said. “The perpetrators of these custodial killings must be held accountable.”
Indian-administered Kashmir, the country’s only Muslim-majority region, has been at the heart of more than 75 years of hostility with neighboring Pakistan since the birth of the two nations in 1947 when British colonial rule ended. Both countries rule Kashmir in part but claim it in full.
The UN Security Council adopted several resolutions in 1948 and the 1950s on the dispute, including one that says a plebiscite should be held to determine the future of the region.
The dispute over the former princely state of Kashmir sparked the first two of three wars between India and Pakistan after independence in 1947. They fought a second in 1965, and a third, largely over what became Bangladesh, in 1971.
Tensions between the two countries escalated earlier this month when India’s top court upheld a 2019 decision by New Delhi to scrap Indian-administered Kashmir’s special status.