UNITED NATIONS: Representatives of Pakistan and India engaged in a fresh verbal duel at the United Nations after Munir Akram, Islamabad’s ambassador, drew the world community’s attention to the threat posed to peace and security in South Asia by “aggressive and expansionist” New Delhi, and highlighted its grave violations of human rights in occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
Responding to Akram, Subhashini Narayanan, a counsellor for India, took the usual defense that affairs of Jammu and Kashmir were an internal matter of New Delhi, and accused Pakistan of involving in terrorism.
She also called on Pakistan to concern itself with the “disturbing conditions” of minorities and women in its country.
Exercising his right of reply, Gul Qaiser Sarwani, first secretary at Pakistan’s mission, rejected India’s claim that Jammu and Kashmir was its integral part, observing the United Nations maps showed the region to be a “disputed territory.”
“The biggest falsehood that we just heard is that Jammu and Kashmir is a part of India,” the Pakistani delegate said, adding: “This is a legal fiction.”
Under the terms of the U.N. resolutions, the final disposition of Jammu and Kashmir is to be determined by its people through an UN-supervised plebiscite, Sarwani said, pointing out that India had accepted this resolution and was bound to comply with it in accordance with Article 25 of UN Charter.
In Kashmir, the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) is deployed along the Line of Control (LoC) in the disputed region, he added.
“If India has any respect for international law and moral courage, it will end its reign of terror, withdraw its troops and let the Kashmiris freely decide their future in accordance with the Security Council resolutions.”
Aggressors, colonisers and occupiers often attempt to justify their suppression of legitimate struggles for self-determination and freedom by portraying them as “terrorism”, Sarwani said.
“India,” he said, “is the very epitome of this approach.”
Noting that Narayanan did not address the facts presented by Pakistan regarding its destabilising arms build-up and aggressive military policies, Sarwani said: “Let me reemphasise that the issues my delegation raised are completely relevant to this Committee’s work, as they carry grave implications for regional and international peace and security.”
But obviously, Narayanan would not want this body to scrutinize the overwhelming deployment of India’s conventional and non-conventional capabilities against Pakistan, he said.
“Pakistan has been and will continue to highlight these issues and India’s ‘state terrorism’ against the people of Indian Illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).”
“India,” he said, “is the very epitome of this approach.”
As for comments regarding minorities, Sarwani said India would do well to reflect on the deeply troubling trajectory their state is embarked on rather than indulging in “patent falsehoods” about Pakistan.
“Today,” he said, “India is being guided by a supremacist ideology that has mainstreamed Islamophobia and bigotry against minorities, particularly Muslims in its political discourse.”
“In today’s incredibly intolerant India, 200 million-strong Muslims face frequent lynching by ‘cow vigilantes’; pogroms by RSS thugs, with official complicity; discriminatory citizenship laws to disenfranchise Muslims; and a concerted campaign to destroy mosques and the rich Muslim heritage of India,” he said.
