‘Patron of terror’: India hits out at Pakistan at United Nations

India on Wednesday rejected Pakistan’s criticism of the human rights situation in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) at the UN Human Rights Council, saying the government in Islamabad should instead focus on credible action to end state-sponsored terrorism.

New Delhi’s response to the criticism by Pakistani human rights minister Shireen Mazari in her address to the UN body in Geneva also described Pakistan as a country with “one of the world’s worst human rights records”, where “institutionalised discrimination and persecution” of minorities has continued unabated.

India’s “right of reply” to the Pakistani minister’s speech was delivered by Seema Pujani, second secretary in the permanent mission to the UN. She described Pakistan’s continued misuse of various platforms for “baseless and malicious propaganda against India is not new”.

Pujani pointed out Pakistan has been the “home and patron to the largest number of internationally proscribed terrorist entities and individuals”, and 126 individuals and 24 entities sanctioned by the UN Security Council are associated with the country. “State-sponsored terrorism by Pakistan is a threat not only to India but to other countries in the region and beyond. The recent acquittal of Omar Saeed Sheikh, the al-Qaeda terrorist and murderer of the American journalist Daniel Pearl, by the Pakistani Supreme Court is a clear example of the Pakistani establishment’s nexus with such entities and, as the US secretary of state said, it is ‘an affront to terrorism victims everywhere’,” Pujani said.

External affairs minister S Jaishankar, who addressed the UN agency before Mazari on Wednesday, had, without naming Pakistan, said terrorism remains one of the “gravest threats to humankind” and constitutes a severe challenge to the global human rights agenda.

Referring to the 2019 decision to scrap the special status of J&K, Pujani said: “We reiterate that the entire union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh are an integral and inalienable part of India. The steps taken...to ensure good governance and development in these union territories are our internal matters.”

The Indian response pointed out that Pakistan would do well to “put its own house in order, before venturing to point a finger at India”. “The violence, institutionalised discrimination and persecution faced by Pakistan’s minorities, including Christians, Sikhs and Hindus, has continued unabated. There have been frequent attacks on the places of worship of minority communities, a grave violation of their right to freedom of religion and belief,” Pujani said.