ISLAMABAD – Pakistan on Sunday strongly condemned the arbitrary arrests andillegal detention of prominent Islamic scholars, including Maulana AbdulRasheed Dawoodi, Maulana Mushtaq Ahmed Veeri and five members ofJamaat-e-Islami, in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).

In a statement issued here, the Foreign Office said these deplorableactions, only days ahead of the UN General Assembly session, manifestIndia’s growing intransigence and utter disregard for human rights andfundamental freedoms.

These arrests have marked a new low in the Indian occupation forces’blatant and continued onslaught on the human rights of the innocentKashmiris.

The reprehensible arrests of the Kashmiri Islamic scholars under thedraconian Public Safety Act (PSA) that defies all internationalhumanitarian laws and permits preventive detention for as many as two yearswithout the need of any trial, is a deplorable preemptive step by theIndian authorities planning to illegally occupy the religiously significant‘Waqf Board’ properties, the statement reads.

Apprehensive of widespread protests and unrest in the face of such amalicious move, these scholars have not only been unjustifiably arrestedbut shifted from Kashmir to a prison in the Hindu majority Jammu. Thesepolitically motivated arrests are clearly meant to stifle the voice of theMuslims of IIOJK and further marginalize them, it added.

Pakistan calls for the immediate release of these religious scholars andall other Kashmiri prisoners illegally detained by India.