Pranav Mathur, Pune
On Saturday, India retorted back at Pakistan at the UN Human Rights Council, stating that it cannot pay any heed to a country that is involved in terrorism worldwide, after the latter continued to raise the issue of Jammu and Kashmir.
The First Secretary in the Permanent Mission of India to the UN in Geneva, Anupama Singh, exercised the right of reply to retort back to Turkiye and Pakistan during Wednesday’s high-level segment of the 55th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council. In her response to the statements made by Turkiye, she expressed immense regret that they were poking in on internal matters of India and asked them to refrain from doing so in the future.
Coming back to our neighbours, India said, “We cannot pay any further attention to a country that speaks while being soaked in red – the red of the bloodshed from the terrorism it sponsors around the world; the red of its debt-riddled national balance sheets; and the red of the shame its own people feel for their government having failed to serve their actual interests.”
She remarked, “Commenting on India, whose pluralistic ethos and democratic credentials are exemplars for the world, is a contrast for everyone to see,” referring seemingly to the support that the Pakistani government has so often extended to the leaders of terror organisations such as Masood Azhar of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Hafiz Saeed of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
Anupama Singh criticised Pakistan for also using the stage of the council to place false allegations against India. She underlined that the Indian government’s constitutional actions for socioeconomic development and good governance in the region are internal affairs and that Jammu, Kashmir, and Ladakh are inalienable parts of the nation.
According to Ms. Singh, Pakistan has a dismal record on human rights and has institutionalised the systematic persecution of its own minorities. She felt it was ironic that Pakistan was making comments on India while India was making tremendous progress in terms of economics and social justice. She mentioned this while giving the example of the widespread violence against the minority Christian communities in Pakistan’s Jaranwala city in August 2023, when 89 Christian homes were set on fire and 19 churches were destroyed.