ISLAMABAD/NEW YORK – Pakistan has rejected India’s “unwarranted assertions”made in the UN General Assembly about the recent fire incident in a Hindutemple in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Exercising his right of reply in General Assembly in New York, Pakistanidelegate Zulqarnain Chheena said that this is not the first time India hastried to feign concern for minority rights elsewhere while being the mostegregious and persistent violator of minority rights itself.
The Pakistan delegate said the blatant acts of discrimination againstMuslims and other minorities in India take place with state complicity.
India’s delegate Aishish Sharma, who spoke after the 193-member Assemblyadopted a resolution on the protection of religious sites, claimed that theKarak authorities “stood idly by” while the temple burned.
In his response, the Pakistan delegate said, “The clear difference betweenIndia and Pakistan in respect of minority rights can be gauged from thefact that the accused in the Karak incident were immediately arrested,orders were issued for repair of the temple, the highest level of judiciarytook immediate notice, and senior political leadership condemned theincident.
“Whereas, in India, the blatant acts of discrimination against Muslims andother minorities take place with state complicity.” he added.
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In this regard, Chheena cited the discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act(CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC); the 2002 Gujarat massacre, the2020 Delhi pogrom; the 1992 demolition of Babri Mosque and acquittal of theaccused by Indian court in 2020; blaming Muslims for spreading coronavirus;raising the bogey of ‘love jehad’; cow vigilantism and terming West BengalMuslims ‘termites’; extra-judicial killings of innocent Kashmiris toblatant attempts to turn Muslims into a minority in Kashmir.
“The RSS-BJP regime’s record is replete with instances of gross andsystemic violations of the rights of minorities, in particular Muslims,”the Pakistani delegate said.
“The Indian leadership is yet to condemn the perpetrators of the Delhimassacre in February 2020, let alone bring those criminals to justice.” “Asa perennial purveyor of state-sponsored discrimination against itsminorities, India is in no position to pontificate on the issue of minorityrights elsewhere”, Chheena told the Assembly.
