Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Freedom Party (DFP) has expressed grave concern over the prevailing political and human rights situation and woeful plight of the Kashmiri prisoners, languishing in different jails and detention centers within and outside Kashmir.

The DFP Spokesman Advocate Arshad Iqbal in a statement issued in Srinagar said that the violence was being used by India as an instrument of war to suppress Kashmiris' legitimate struggle for right to self-determination'.

He said that the international human rights organizations must take stock of the situation and play their due role to stop human rights violations in the disputed territory.

He also denounced the continued illegal detention of Hurriyat leaders, human rights defenders, journalists and civil society activists who have been arrested before and after 5th August 2019.

Voicing his party's concern over the deteriorating health condition of the incarcerated party chairman Shabir Ahmed Shah and other Hurriyat leaders including Muhammad Yasin Malik, Dr. Hameed Fayaz, Bilal Siddiqui and others, the spokesman warned that neglecting prisoners' health and treating them as subhumans amounts to war crimes.

"The ailing prisoners, who are suffering from serious ailments, have been deprived of their fundamental right, the right to adequate medical checkups and access to specialized treatment", he added.

He urged the Amnesty international, Human Rights Watch and other international human rights bodies to come forward in a big way to help secure early release of the Kashmiri prisoners, especially those suffering from life threatening diseases.