Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai urged the world leaders to help children in Kashmir to go back to school safely.
In one of her series of tweets the child rights activist said she is asking the world leaders who will be attending the upcoming United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session in New York. By Kashmir she was addressing to the Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, which is now a union territory following a measure by the BJP-led Narendra Modi government on August 5 of stripping Article 370 from the Constitution that provided special status to the state.
Malala Yousafzai added she is deeply concerned about reports from Indian Kashmir that about 4,000 people have been arrested and jailed.
Malala narrated stories of three girls in the region with whom she had spoken last week. One of them said, “The best way to describe the situation in Kashmir right now is absolute silence. We have no way of finding out what’s happening to us. All we could hear is the steps of troops outside our windows.”
Another girl said she feel depressed and purposeless as she is unable to go to school as well as sit for exams which were scheduled on August 12.
Sinch August 5 the newly formed Jammu and Kashmir is under a near-complete lockdown and rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called the Indian government to lift restrictions from the region and release political detainees.
Both India and Pakistan hold parts of Kashmir and claim the region in full. Some parts are also controlled by China.
