India has hit out at Pakistan, Turkey and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) at the 45th session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for their remarks on India’s internal affairs.
Responding to the references made by Pakistan about Jammu and Kashmir, Pawan Badhe, First Secretary at the Permanent Mission of India to the UN in Geneva, said, New Delhi did not need “unsolicited lecture on human rights from a country that has consistently persecuted its ethnic and religious minorities”. The Indian diplomat went on to say that Pakistan was an epicenter of terrorism with the distinction of providing ”pensions” to individuals on the UN Sanctions list and has a Prime Minister (Imran Khan) who proudly admitted training tens of thousands of terrorists to fight in Jammu and Kashmir.
Highlighting how “mass influx of outsiders has whittled down the number of Kashmiris to an insignificant number in Pakistan”, he said, “thousands of Sikh, Hindus and Christian minority women and girls have been subjected to abductions, forced marriages and conversions in Pakistan.”
On OIC, the Indian diplomat said, it has “no locus standi to comment on internal affairs of India”.
The grouping, he said, has “allowed itself to be misused by Pakistan to subvert its own agenda.”
“It’s for the members (of the OIC) to decide if it is in their interests to allow Pakistan to do so,” he added.
About Turkey’s remarks, Badhe said, New Delhi could “only advise Turkey to refrain from commenting on the internal affairs of India and develop a better understanding of the democratic practices.”
Exercising the Right of Reply to the statements made by Pakistan Indian representative on Tuesday said that it has become habitual for Pakistan to malign India with false and fabricated narratives for its self-serving malicious purposes.
“In its zeal to reassert its theocratic ideology, it (Pakistan) has ensured that ethnic and religious minorities have no future through systematic persecution, blasphemy laws, forced conversions, targeted killings, sectarian violence and faithbased discrimination,” India said.
On the plight of people in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh, India said, “Not a single day has gone by when a family in Balochistan doesn’t find its members picked up or kidnapped by the security forces of Pakistan.
“Pakistan does well when it comes to intimidation and attacks against journalists, human rights defenders and political dissidents in particular by its state machinery. It is not without a reason that Pakistan has been highlighted by international organisations as a country where journalists are slain and their killers go scot free, India said.
India also slammed Pakistan for abusing various HRC mechanisms and platforms for raising issues, which are extraneous to the mandate of the HRC and which relate to the internal affairs of India, with a view to distract the attention of the international community from serious human rights violations committed by it against its own people, including in Indian territories occupied by it.
India also rejected the reference made by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to Jammu and Kashmir, which is an integral part of India.
~ With inputs from PTI~