Kashmir integral part of India, no ‘empty rhetoric’ will change reality: Delhi’s reply to Pakistan at UNGA

India has told Pakistan that no amount of “empty rhetoric” by it will change the reality that Jammu and Kasmir is an “inalienable” part of India after Islamabad’s envoy to the UN made a reference to the Indian state at a UN General Assembly debate.

Pakistan’s Ambassador to the UN Maleeha Lodhi’s reference came during her remarks on Monday in the General Assembly debate on ‘The Responsibility to Protect and the Prevention of Genocide, War Crimes, Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes against Humanity.’ Lodhi said people in Kashmir are among victims of “egregious crimes” such as killings and mass-blinding.

India exercised the Right of Reply, strongly rejecting Pakistan’s reference to Kashmir in the 193-member UN body.

“While we are having this serious debate for the first time in a decade on an issue that is of importance to all of us, we have witnessed that one delegation has, yet again, misused this platform to make an unwarranted reference to the situation in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir,” First Secretary in India’s Permanent Mission to the UN Sandeep Kumar Bayyapu said in India’s Right of Reply.

Bayyapu said such cynical attempts by Pakistan to raise the Kashmir issue in the UN have failed in the past and do not find any resonance in the UN body. “I would like to place on record and reiterate that the state of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral and inalienable part of India. No amount of empty rhetoric from Pakistan will change this reality,” he said.

In her remarks earlier in the day, Lodhi had said if the international community is “selective” in its approach where it is expressing indignation at some transgressions while choosing to willfully ignore others, then any norm will be quickly turned into mere pretense.