A fact-finding team in occupied Kashmir, comprising members from various parts of India has said that Indian troops and paramilitary forces have killed innocent people during the recent protest demonstrations.
The 10-member team including intellectuals, academicians, journalists and rights activists said the self-determination was an inalienable right of Kashmiris and called for addressing the issue in accordance with the United Nations resolutions, KMS reported.
"The most disturbing sight in the whole fact-finding mission was over-bearing presence of Indian troops and powers given to the army, paramilitary, SOG, police under the garb of fighting militancy has only increased the cruelty and brutality of the forces perpetrated on people," Professor Amit Bhattacharya of Kolkata University told newsmen.
"The naked display of this power is visible in the way the forces have been dealing with the recent rallies for freedom by the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Brutal force has been used with impunity to break down the will of the people," said Bhattacharya, flanked by M Ibrahim, executive editor Madhyaman, Kerala, Rona Wilson, research scholar JNU and Professor Syed Abdul Rehman Gilani of Delhi University.
He said the impression, they got by studying the ground reality in the difficult situation, was that it was a broad-based people's movement in which people belonging to all the communities played their supportive roles.
Bhattacharya pointed out that the tear gas shells that were used ostensibly to disperse protesters were the ones that are used in times of war adding that almost all the testimonies of the injured prove this beyond doubt. The team said that Indian army had occupied large chunks of prime land across the territory.