India Slams Pakistan's "Irony" at UN Over Human Rights Allegations

"Pakistan should first address the systematic persecution of minorities including Hindus, Sikhs, Christians and Ahmadiyya in its territories", Luther M Rangerji, an Additional Secretary in the External Affairs Ministry said on Tuesday, responding to allegations made by Islamabad.

"The reality is that this delegation [of Pakistan] represents a geographical space long associated with grave crimes against humanity, which have endangered the lives of innocent people within their own borders", he said.

"The irony is unmistakable: The very perpetrators of these acts continue to receive shelter and patronage" in Pakistan, he said.

Rangerji also drew attention to the unabated forced abduction, forced conversion, and marriage of women and girls from the minority communities in Pakistan, with the perpetrators having near-total impunity and immunity.

At the meeting of the preparatory committee for the UN Conference on Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Humanity on Monday, Pakistan's delegate raised the Kashmir issue and made allegations against India.

Again on Tuesday, after Rangerji's address to the committee, where he spoke out against Islamabad's insinuations, a First Secretary in Pakistan's UN mission, Zulifqar Ali, came up with another attack on India, exercising the right of reply.

That prompted Rangerji, to take the stage again to further excoriate Pakistan, exposing its support for terrorism and its treatment of minorities.

Pakistan's "unfounded and politically-motivated allegations reflect its continued misuse of all available multilateral platforms to divert attention from its own grave human rights violations and distract member states from its long-standing record of sponsoring cross-border terrorism".

At almost every meeting at the UN, regardless of the subject, Pakistan brings up Kashmir.

The meeting of the committee was to prepare for the Conference on Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity scheduled for 2028. The Conference is to prepare an international convention on the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity.

"Let me state this unequivocally -- the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral and inalienable part of India. The rules and legislations brought in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir are strictly internal affairs of India," Rangerji said.

"Pakistan would do well if they focus on addressing its internal human rights abuses, dismantling terrorist infrastructure operating from its soil and fulfilling its obligations under international law instead of peddling falsehoods", Rangerji said.

- IANS