India rubbishes Pakistan’s claim of human rights violations in Kashmir; says remark of neighbouring country in UN irrelevant

Washington, May 4: India has downplayed and rubbished all the allegations made by Pakistan of human rights violation in Kashmir at the United Nations committee on information.

 

Notably, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations Masood Anwar while addressing a session of Committee on Information raked up the issue of Kashmir accusing Indian authorities of violating human rights. In response to the allegations of Pakistan, India raised strong objection saying it was irrelevant to the work of the panel.

During a general debate, Pakistani delegate Masood Anwar said, "The world we live today is marred with conflict and strife while we maintain unity in fighting terrorism and extremism. Countering the narrative of this twisted ideologies is imperative."

He further urged UN's Department of Public Information (DPI) to play an important role in defusing tensions and promoting interfaith harmony. "Human rights violations, in particular, are a matter of serious concern to the international community," he said. He also urged DPI to highlight situations where grave violations of human rights are taking place, especially against the Rohingya, Kashmiris and Palestinians.

Whereas, Indian diplomat S Srinivas Prasad downplayed the allegations of Pakistani ambassador and said that his remarks are irrelevant to the work of the Committee. Prasad said, "We have seen another attempt here today to make reference to issues extraneous to the agenda of the Committee. We completely reject these remarks as they have no relevance to the work of the Committee."

Prasad further lauded the DPI's work on counter-terrorism and said that raised the support. "India is opposed to all forms of terrorism and believes that effective cooperation among countries is necessary to combat the threat," Prasad added.

He referred to the production of the documentary ‘Surviving Terrorism: Victim's voices' on the survivors of the Norway terror attack of 2011, saying civilians affected by terrorism is an "untold story" and hoped that the DPI will pick up more such stories from terrorist violence-affected countries.

The Indian diplomat also raised concern over declining financial resources that have presented a serious constraint on the ability of the DPI to carry out its mandated tasks especially in non-official languages. “DPI needs to look at innovative ways to raise resources beyond the regular budgetary allocations, including through voluntary contributions to continue and expand its global outreach activities, especially in the widely-spoken non-official languages,” Prasad said.

Prasad, on behalf of India, lauded DPI over expansion in the number of languages in which UN guided tours are offered. He further pointed out that guided tours of the world body have been very popular with Indian tourists in the city, urging the addition of a guided tour in Hindi to facilitate Indian tourists. Prasad, in the end, also noted that the Department facilitated the on-location filming of Bollywood film ‘Padman' at the United Nations headquarters in November 2017.