WASHINGTON – India’s efforts to restrict access to Jammu and Kashmir are”unproductive,” the top U.S. diplomat for human rights said Tuesday.
“No we don’t think it’s helpful,” Robert Destro, the State Department’sassistant secretary for human rights, told a congressional subcommittee onAsia, the Pacific and Nonproliferation. “It’s actually counterproductive.”
India-administered Jammu and Kashmir has been under a near-completelockdown since New Delhi’s move on Aug. 5, to scrap the special status ofthe region previously codified in the Indian Constitution’s Article 370.
Several rights groups including Human Rights Watch and AmnestyInternational have repeatedly called on India to lift restrictions andrelease political detainees.
Attempts to stifle access to the contested region have also resulted in theState Department being unable to send in a delegation to view first-handthe conditions on the ground there.
Alice Wells, the acting assistant secretary for South and Central Asia,told lawmakers that Washington has been denied permission by New Delhi tovisit Jammu and Kashmir.
The Indian government told Washington “this is not the right time” tovisit, Wells said.
India has maintained that 93% of the restrictions have been eased in theconflict-ridden region, a claim Anadolu Agency could not independentlyverify.
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From 1954 until Aug. 5, 2019, Jammu and Kashmir enjoyed a special statusunder Article 370, which allowed it to enact its own laws.
The provisions also protected the region’s citizenship law, which barredoutsiders from settling in and owning land in the territory.
Wells said Washington is not concerned with the revocation of Article 370in and of itself, but rather the conditions under which Kashmiris live.
“We’re not taking a position on Article 370,” she said. “We are taking aposition on whether Kashmiris can live in dignity, and have a full economicand political life.”
India and Pakistan both hold Kashmir in parts and claim it in full. Chinaalso controls part of the contested region, but it is India and Pakistanwho have fought two wars over KASHMIR, Anadolu Agency has reported.
