GENEVA: Pakistan has urged the UN Human Rights Council to step up efforts to get access for independent observers into Illegally-Occupied Jammu and Kashmir to conduct an impartial investigation into reports of multiple violations of human rights in the disputed territory.

Speaking in the 47-member body's general debate, Pakistan's permanent representative to the UN in Geneva,  Khalil Hashmi, said failure to hold India accountable for human rights abuses in the illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir will erode the credibility of this Council, its members, and the global human rights agenda.

The Pakistani envoy thanked the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, for voicing concern over the rights situation in the Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir.