India on Monday accused Pakistan of harbouring terrorists as well as changing the demography of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir through persecution of minorities, enforced disappearances and influx of outsiders, News18 reported.
“Full scale training camps and launchpads of terrorists are being escalated in Pakistan-occupied parts of Indian Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh at great expense, for sustaining cross border terrorism against India,” Pawan Kumar Badhe, India’s first secretary to the United Nations in Geneva, told the General Assembly. Badhe alleged that Pakistan has allowed delisting of 4,000 terrorists “to sustain its terror ecosystem”.
The Indian delegation also said that Pakistan continues to persecute its minorities, the Hindustan Times reported. “Various international organisations have termed Pakistan as the killing field for minorities,” Badhe said. “The Ahmadis remains the most persecuted community in Pakistan under the aegis of the so-called Constitution of Pakistan. Hundreds of Christians are persecuted every year while maximum of them are subjected to violent deaths in Pakistan.” India said “beheading is the only option in Pakistan in exchange for freedom of religion”.
The Indian diplomat also told the annual gathering of world leaders that Pakistan has “institutionalised” enforced disappearance as a way to stifle dissent and criticism. “Children as young as 12 years old in Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh are normally abducted and trained to be suicide bombers,” Badhe said. “In a chilling reminder to what Pakistan is capable of, ministers of Pakistan proudly call for another full-scale genocide to resolve the political crisis in Balochistan.”
Badhe also accused Pakistan of orchestrating a mass influx of outsiders into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir through discriminatory domicile laws. “It’s baffling that there are three outsiders for every four [people] in the Pakistan-occupied parts of Indian Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh,” Badhe said. He alleged that civil, political and constitutional rights are absent in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
The diplomat maintained that the whole of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh is part of India and that Pakistan should “stop coveting territories of other countries”.
‘India sponsors Islamophobia’: Imran Khan
On September 25, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had accused India of trying to cement control in Kashmir and called the Narendra Modi government a sponsor of hatred and prejudice against Islam. “The one country in the world today where, I am sad to say, the state sponsors Islamophobia, is India,” Khan said.
Khan added that there could be no durable peace and stability in South Asia until the Jammu and Kashmir dispute was resolved on the basis of international legitimacy. “Pakistan has always called for a peaceful solution,” he added. “To this end, India must rescind the measures it has instituted since August 5 in 2019, end its military siege and other gross human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir.”
In response, First Secretary in India’s Permanent Mission to the UN Mijito Vinito walked out of the General Assembly hall in protest. India also accused Pakistan of peddling “another litany of vicious falsehood, personal attacks, war mongering”. New Delhi said Pakistan’s only crowning glory was “70 years of terrorism, ethnic cleansing, majoritarian fundamentalism, and clandestine nuclear trade”.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had addressed the UN General Assembly via videoconferencing on September 26.
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