Describing Pakistan as a ‘failed state’ that should be held accountable for state-sponsored terrorism, India has asked the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) to pay urgent attention to Islamabad’s deplorable human rights records and its discriminatory treatment of ethnic and religious minorities.

Exercising its ‘Right of Reply’ on Pakistan’s representative statement at the 46th session of the HRC in Geneva, Indian representative Pavan Badhe said Islamabad must stop preaching and focus on its responsibility towards the millions suffering in the country. “This Council must pay urgent attention to Pakistan’s deplorable human rights records and discriminatory treatment of its ethnic and religious minorities,” he said. Badhe said, “It is high time that Pakistan, which continues to export terrorism, is held accountable for its state-sponsored and supported grave violation of human rights of its people.”

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Citing victim groups, the Indian diplomat said millions of people from Balochistan have disappeared since the year 2000 and their families continue to struggle for their voices to be heard.

“Balochistan has now come to be known as the land of the disappeared,” he said, adding that the risk of enforced disappearances has also increased in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province after the promulgation of a new ordinance, which gives security agencies vast abusive powers.

Badhe also noted that there has been an alarming increase in blasphemy accusations under Pakistan’s draconian blasphemy laws and that around 200 such cases were reported last year. Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws and their punishments were considered extremely severe. Under the law, those accused of blasphemy were deprived of the right to a counsel of their choice, as most lawyers refuse to take up such sensitive cases.

Even as India lashed out at Pakistan at HRC, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla, addressing a think tank in New Delhi last night, said India desired good neighbourly ties with Pakistan and was committed to addressing issues, if any, bilaterally. He, however, made it clear that any meaningful dialogue between the two countries could only be held in a conducive atmosphere and the onus was on Pakistan to create such an atmosphere.