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Geneva: India takes on OIC, Turkey over Kashmir; shames Pakistan

Using strong words against Islamabad, Badhe said it has become a habit for Pakistan to malign India with false and fabricated narratives

Wednesday September 16, 2020 7:57 PM, IANS

Geneva/New Delhi: India on Tuesday slammed Turkey and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, while shaming Pakistan for funding cross-border terrorism and ethnic cleansing of its minorities.

In response to the statements made by Pakistan, Turkey and the OIC at the Council, Indian representative Pawan Badhe, First Secretary at the Permanent Mission of India in Geneva, rejected their comments on India's internal matters, specifically Jammu and Kashmir, which was reorganised last year and bifurcated into two Union Territories.

In an unprecedented takedown of the OIC, Turkey and Pakistan, Badhe said, "The Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India. The OIC has no locus standi to comment on internal affairs of India. The OIC has allowed itself to be misused by Pakistan to subvert its own agenda. It's for the members of the OIC to decide if it is in their interest to allow Pakistan to do so."

He also advised Turkey to refrain from commenting on the internal affairs of India.

Using strong words against Islamabad, Badhe said it has become a habit for Pakistan to malign India with false and fabricated narratives for its self-serving malicious purposes.

"Neither India nor others deserve this unsolicited lecture on human rights from a country that has consistently persecuted its ethnic and religious minorities, is an epicentre of terrorism, has the distinction of providing pensions to individuals on UN Sanctions list and has a Prime Minister who proudly admits training tens of thousands of terrorists to fight in Jammu and Kashmir," he said.

The Indian diplomat said that it is not surprising that other relevant multilateral institutions have been raising serious concerns on Pakistan's failure to stop terror financing and lack of effective actions against all terror entities in Pakistan.

The nefarious designs of Pakistan continue in Pakistan occupied parts of the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, he said.

"The mass influx of outsiders has whittled down the number of Kashmiris to an insignificant number in Pakistan occupied parts of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh," he informed the council.

Badhe argued that in its zeal to reassert its theocratic ideology, Pakistan has ensured that ethnic and religious minorities have no future because of systematic persecution, blasphemy laws, forced conversions, targeted killings, sectarian violence and faith-based discrimination.

Thousands of Sikh, Hindu and Christian minority women and girls have been subjected to abductions, forced marriages and conversions in Pakistan, he pointed out.

The plight of the people under its subjugation is well represented by the state of affairs in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh.

"Not a single day has gone by when a family in Balochistan doesn't find its members picked up or kidnapped by the security forces of Pakistan," the Indian representative told the council.

In a scathing attack, the Indian diplomat used sarcasm to describe what Pakistan excels in.

"Pakistan does well when it comes to intimidation and attacks against journalists, human rights defenders and political dissidents, in particular by its state machinery. It is not without a reason that Pakistan has been highlighted by international organisations as a country where journalists are slain and their killers go scot free.

"Pakistan has been abusing various HRC mechanisms and platforms for raising issues, which are extraneous to the mandate of the HRC and which relate to internal affairs of India, with a view to distract the attention of the international community from serious human rights violations committed by it against its own people, including in Indian territories occupied by it," Badhe concluded.

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