By IRNA
Srinagar, India : Leading Pakistani Human Rights activist, Asma Jahangir, who is visiting Kashmir has said that India was home to many religious denominations and they enjoyed full religious freedom.
Asma who arrived in Srinagar Friday said she was on a UN mission and her objective here was to study the situation with regard to religious freedoms, and not to survey violations of human rights.
Jahangir, who holds the UN mandate on religious freedoms since 1986 and is the co-chairperson of the Pakistan Human Rights Commission, told a press conference here that she had toured several countries till now to study the religious freedom situation and her India trip was a part of the same process.
“I have come here to apprise myself of the situation with regard to religious tolerance and religious freedom, and my activities will be confined to that. Surveying the human rights situation is not included in my schedule,” she said.
She said that this was her second trip to India within two years, and this time she had surveyed several cities like Delhi and Amritsar.
Giving her impressions of India so far, she said that the country was home to many religious denominations and they enjoyed full religious freedom.
“India is a large democracy. The roots of democracy here are very strong.
The stronger the democracy in a country, the higher is the degree of religious freedom its people enjoy,” she said.
“On the first leg of my tour, I interacted with people from different schools of thought in Jammu yesterday and exchanged views on religious tolerance prevailing here,” she said.
Jahangir said that she would interact with several people in Kashmir, including human rights activists and social and political figures in an effort to apprise herself on the religious freedom situation here.
She said that the recent elections in Pakistan were a major victory for the people, who, she said, were happy at the restoration of democracy.