London, March 11, 2023 (PPI-OT): The Member of British Parliament, Lord Qurban Hussain, has raised his voice for the suffering women of Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir. Taking part in a debate held in the UK Parliament in connection with the International Women’s Day, he said, “On International Women’s Day, while we are discussing very important issues such as steps taken to support the education of women and girls in the United Kingdom and worldwide, we must not forget those women in conflict zones facing physical torture, verbal abuse, harassment, rape and murder with complete impunity. One of those areas is Kashmir, where I was born.”

He said that after the repeal of special status of IIOJK by Narendra Modi-led fascist government on August 05, 2019, there are thousands of Kashmiri men and women held in different prisons in different parts of India, booked under draconian law Public Safety Act or sedition, provocation and anti-India activities laws. He cited Kashmiri women leaders, Aasiya Andrabi, Fehmeeda Sofi and Naheeda Nasreen as examples of the women who have been held in New Delhi’s infamous Tihar Jail far away from their home in IIOJK for a long period.

Lord Qurban Hussain, who is Secretary of All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Kashmir, said Aasiya Andrabi, the founder and chairperson of one of south Asia’s biggest women’s organisations Dukhtaran-e-Millat, is one of the most prominent woman pro-freedom leaders of Kashmir, and is a science graduate in biochemistry, biotherapy, and bacteriology. Aasiya Andrabi is the first woman resistance leader from Kashmir, who has been booked under the Public Safety Act 20 times since 1993. He said, the charge against Aasiya Andrabi is simple; she fiercely advocates Kashmir’s liberation from the Indian yoke. In October 1990 Andrabi married Dr Muhammad Qasim Fakhtoo, a resistance ideologist who happens to be Kashmir’s longest-serving political prisoner. The couple has spent only four years together in their 28-year marriage. The 58 year-old Aasiya Andrabi is suffering from various life-threatening diseases and is denied medical care in the jail, he said.

Lord Qurban Hussain said that Sofi Fehmeeda was arrested by India’s notorious National Investigation Agency on 20 April 2018 and charged with sedition. Since then, she has been imprisoned in Tihar, and her mother is still waiting for her release, he said. The British MP said, Naheeda Nasreen, is a graduate in theology and Islamic studies.

He said, there are thousands of men and women who are held in Indian prisons and their only real crime is to have taken part in the campaign for the right to self-determination, which was promised by India at the United Nations in 1948 and 1949. “I ask the Minister to say what the British Government can do to aid the release of prisoners, such as these three ladies, from Indian prisons. Furthermore, are the British Government prepared to link human rights to their free trade deal with India?” he asked. Meanwhile, former Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir, Raja Muhammad Farooq Haider Khan, and Jammu and Kashmir Self-Determination Movement International team have thanked Lord Qurban Hussain for raising his voice for plight of women of IIOJK.

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