UNITED NATIONS – Pakistan has called on the United Nations to highlightthe serious violations of human rights taking place in Indian OccupiedKashmir, a call that evoked strong objections from India.

Speaking in a session of the UN Committee on Information, a world body’skey forum, the Press Minister at the Pakistani Mission to the UN, MasoodAnwar, raised the issue of Kashmir, saying that human rights violations aretaking place against the oppressed Kashmiri people.

“The world we live today is marred with conflict and strife while wemaintain unity in fighting terrorism and extremism.

Countering the narrative of this twisted ideologies is imperative,” Anwarsaid.

He said the UN’s Department of Public Information (DPI) can play animportant role in defusing tensions and promoting interfaith harmony.

“Human rights violations in particular are a matter of serious concern tothe international community,” he said.

He urged DPI to highlight situations where “grave violations of humanrights are taking place”, especially against the Rohingya, Kashmiris andPalestinians.”

India rejected Anwar’s reference to Kashmir, saying his remarks wereirrelevant to the work of the committee.

“We have seen another attempt here today to make reference to issuesextraneous to the agenda of the committee. We completely reject theseremarks as they have no relevance to the work of the Committee,” S.Srinivas Prasad, minister in the Indian mission to the UN, said during thedebate.

In his speech, Masood Anwar, the Pakistani delegate, also said that largemovements of refugees and migrants trying to escape conflict and strife hadrightly engaged the attention of and elicited the deep concern of theinternational community.

However, situations of protracted refugee presence where persons remaineddisplaced for decades must not be forgotten.

Recalling that Pakistan had hosted millions of Afghan refugees for morethan 40 years, he urged the Department to focus on such situations, alsodrawing attention to his country’s renaissance in music, art and film.Young Pakistanis were breaking stereotypes, and society now reflectedmodernity and vibrancy rooted in the country’s ancient civilizational roots.

As Pakistan was one of the main troop contributing countries to UnitedNations peacekeeping operations, he said it was working with othercontributors on norm building discussions including on the reform of thatkey United Nations enterprise and urged the Department to bolster itsefforts to support that project. APP