South Asian rights body calls for de-escalation in India-Pakistan tensions 

A view of broken home windows and buildings following cross-border shelling by Pakistan in the wake of ‘Operation Sindoor’, in Poonch on May 8, 2025.
| Photo Credit: ANI

COLOMBO

South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR), a regional community of human rights defenders, has demanded that the governments of India and Pakistan instantly de-escalate “the current war situation”.

Issuing a press release on Thursday [May 8, 2025], it warned that “failing to do so will irrevocably affect people of both countries as well as the people of South Asia”.

Operation Sindoor: Follow LIVE updates on May 8, 2025

The rights body stated it “vehemently condemned” India’s “Operation Sindoor” navy strikes throughout 9 areas in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir early on Wednesday (May 7, 2025), and noticed that Pakistan’s retaliation was “further escalating this situation”.

While many governments and political leaders in the area had been fast to sentence the grotesque terror assault in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, on April 22, 2025, that claimed 26 lives, they haven’t commented on the escalation in tensions between India and Pakistan up to now.

Reiterating the necessity for “a credible and transparent investigation” into the terrorist assault in Pahalgam, led by the United Nations, SAHR noticed that the folks of India, Pakistan in addition to the area should keep away from “any means of war mongering”. “Ultimately the two governments are accountable for all the intentional destruction and loss of life, and therefore must strive to maintain an effective, and meaningful dialogue and diplomacy to address related issues and concerns,” it additional famous.

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Urging the 2 events to chorus from “toxic weaponisation of religion”, the regional community of rights activists expressed solidarity with the “fundamental rights of the people of Kashmir and their long years of struggle”.

“Peace is essential to South Asians, especially now. There are numerous human rights and humanitarian issues that people of India and Pakistan and the entire region are facing which have compelled them to survive with the bare minimum provisions and capacity sans upgrading their life to a dignified standard.”