Jammu and Kashmir world's 'largest open jail'

BRUSSELS

Prime minister of Azad Kashmir, Pakistani-administered Kashmir, said that Indian-administered part of Jammu and Kashmir is the "largest open jail" in the world.

"Now the state of Jammu and Kashmir is the largest open jail in this earth," Raja Farooq Haider Khan told Anadolu Agency.

He said the situation in Jammu and Kashmir is "very bad" due to shortage of medicines for the last 29 days.

"They have turned the state of Jammu and Kashmir into stone age because there is no telephone contacts, no internet, nobody knows what is going on in the neighborhood and the people are being arrested," he added.

'The snipers of the Indian army are killing innocent people'

Khan said that around four to six thousand young men were arrested, sent to jails and their relatives, mothers and fathers do not know where their sons have been shifted.

"It is a great human right violation going on in Kashmir and I call it a crime against humanity," he said, adding: "The snipers of the Indian army are killing innocent people."

He said they are against the present policies of Narendra Modi government in India.

"A new Hitler was born in South Asia," Khan said referring to Modi.

Kashmir is a regional issue, but it can also turn into a global issue, he added.

'Erdogan supported people of Jammu and Kashmir'

Khan said they are concerned about the safety of their brothers in Indian-administered part of Kashmir and they have not heard from them as India constructed a "wall" around Jammu and Kashmir.

"I want to especially thank President of Turkey Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he supported the people of Jammu and Kashmir," he said.

He also went to the U.S. and got a "very positive" response from the lawmakers and the issue may be discussed at the Human Rights Subcommittee of U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee, he added.

Jammu and Kashmir is under near-complete lockdown since Aug. 5 after India scrapped the special provisions, according to several rights group, including the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

India has blocked communication and imposed strict restrictions to thwart any rebellion while political leaders in the region have been detained as the right groups repeatedly called on New Delhi to lift the restrictions and release political detainees.

From 1954 until Aug. 5, 2019, Jammu and Kashmir had special provisions under which it enacted its own laws. The provisions also protected the region's citizenship law, which barred outsiders from settling in and owning land in the territory.

India and Pakistan both hold Kashmir in parts and claim it in full. China also controls part of the contested region, but it is India and Pakistan who have fought two wars over Kashmir.

* Writing by Fatih Hafiz Mehmet