Key Points

Addressing the 60th session of the UNHRC, Sharma condemned terrorism as a fundamental assault on human dignity and international peace. He invoked the April 22, 2025, attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Baisaran Valley of Pahalgam, where 26 innocent civilians were massacred in a targeted assault on pilgrims and tourists.

"Terrorism is not only an attack on national sovereignty," Sharma said, addressing the Council President.

"It is a direct assault on humanity, human dignity, and the very values enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The peaceful valleys of Pahalgam were shattered not by a random act, but by a systematic campaign of transnational militancy designed to spread fear and sabotage stability, he added.

Sharma underlined that the Pahalgam tragedy is not an isolated incident, but part of a broader global pattern of extremist violence. From Mumbai and Pulwama to Paris and Manchester, he said, the footprints of transnational militancy show that terrorism cannot be treated merely as a bilateral security issue. Instead, it represents a global human rights crisis requiring a unified and principled international response.

Calling for collective resolve, Sharma concluded: "The world must respond with principled unity. Let history record not our silence, but our resolve."

Earlier, prominent Kashmiri human rights activist and survivor of terrorism, Tasleema Akhter, delivered an appeal to the international community, recounting her own childhood tragedy and the continuing suffering of countless families in Jammu and Kashmir at the hands of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism.

Speaking as both a human rights activist and a daughter of Kashmir, she recalled the harrowing events of April 11, 1999, when, at the age of eleven, she saw her father and elder brother abducted by a nexus of local militants and Pakistan-backed terrorists. While her father was released in a tortured state, her brother endured seven days of captivity, a trauma that forced the family to abandon their ancestral home. "From that moment, my childhood was stolen forever," she stated.

- ANI