Indian police beat up and injured a girl in the premises of a quarantine centre in Nagam Chadoora, Budgam district of the occupied valley of Kashmir.
The relatives of the people put in quarantine said that the administration was delaying conducting of test and was not declaring the tests results of the quarantined persons. They added that the samples were taken on May 12 in Udhampur but the test reports were still awaited.
Eyewitnesses said that a 19-year-old girl was injured after Indian police beat her up. She was shifted to a hospital for treatment. A series of videos of this incident have gone viral on social media. In one of the videos, a cop can be seen chasing and hurling abuses on a local Kashmiri. Later, the locals held a protest demonstration and chanted slogans against the brutalities of the Indian forces.
The administration in India-occupied Jammu and Kashmir has declared the entire Kashmir region as well as three districts in Jammu as red zones amid huge spike in coronavirus infections. Amid Covid-19 outbreak, long-running curbs on the internet have prevented those living in the occupied valley from accessing information about the deadly virus as education and awareness drives seen elsewhere in India about the symptoms of the disease are impossible to run in the occupied territory.
Meanwhile, Hundreds of Kashmiris including students and labourers stranded in India and other countries due to coronavirus lockdown have sought their evacuation. Around 500 students from occupied valley of Kashmir are stranded in Aligarh, India, due to Covid-19 lockdown. A group of students of Aligarh Muslim University told media over phone that they had been stuck for the last two months due to lockdown and desperately want to return home. Around 100 students, teachers and labourers from occupied Kashmir stranded in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh have also urged the authorities in the occupied valley to make arrangements for their return.
Pakistan has repeatedly called on India to lift the communication blockade imposed in occupied valley and ensure supplies of essential commodities in the valley to contain the spread of Covid-19 and mitigate the suffering of the Kashmiris.
A top US diplomat on Saturday said that Washington has seen unfortunate reports of Covid-19 related ‘rhetoric and harassment’ against the Muslim community in India. “In India, we have seen reports of unfortunate Covid-19-related rhetoric and harassment, particularly against the Muslim community. This has been exacerbated by fake news reports, misinformation being shared via social media.
There have also been instances of Muslims being attacked for allegedly spreading the coronavirus,” Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback said while briefing reporters during a conference call on the impact of Covid-19 on religious minorities throughout the world.
