'To obfuscate own misdeeds': India hits out at Pakistan PM for raking up Kashmir at UNGA

New York, Sept 24: It has been a crucial part of the daily routine of Pakistan to bring up the Kashmir issue. Though the past PMs of Pakistan have raked up the Kashmir issue on international platforms like the ongoing United National General Assembly, the speech of Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif should have more about the deadliest floods taking place in his country.

 

 

 

For bringing up Kashmir at a platform like UNGA, India on Saturday called out Sharif for "making false accusations against India" during his address at the 77th session of the UNGA. In a stern message, the first secretary of the Indian Mission to the UN, Mijito Vinito, slammed Pakistan for sheltering terrorists behind the horrific 26/11 Mumbai attack and accused it of sponsoring cross-border terrorism. In 2020, Mijito had walked out of UNGA hall after then Pak PM Imran Khan started making anti-India remarks.

 

 

 

 

“It is regrettable that the Pakistan PM chose the platform of this assembly to make false accusations against India. He has done so to obfuscate misdeeds in his own country, and to justify actions against India,” Mijito Vinito said, exercising India's right of reply.

 

On Sharif’s statement -“We look for peace with all our neighbours”; India replied,"A polity that claims it seeks peace with its neighbours would never sponsor cross border terrorism. Nor would it shelter planners of the horrific Mumbai terrorist attack, disclosing their existence only under pressure from the international community," Vinito said.

 

"The desire for peace, security and progress in the Indian subcontinent is real. It is also widely shared. And it can be realized. That will surely happen when cross-border terrorism ceases, when governments come clean with the international community and their own people, when minorities are not persecuted and, not least, when we recognize these realities before this Assembly," he said.

 

Reminding the world body of the atrocities against minorities, the Indian diplomat referred to recent incidents of forced abduction and marriage of girls from Hindu, Sikh and Christian families in Pakistan and "conversions within Pakistan," he said. "It is about human rights, about minority rights and about basic decencies," the Indian diplomat said. Vinito also said "When young women in the thousands from the minority community are abducted as an SOP, what can we conclude about the underlying mindset?"

 

"Such a country would not make unjustified and untenable territorial claims against neighbours. It would not covet their lands and seek to illegally integrate them with its own. But it is not just about the neighbourhood that we have heard false claims today," he said.

 

The Pakistani PM earlier raked up the Kashmir issue at the 77th session of the UNGA and said that it looks for peace with all our neighbours, including India. “Sustainable peace and stability in South Asia however remain contingent upon a just and lasting solution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute…,” he added. He also raised the abrogation of Article 370 and Article 35 A by the Indian government in 2019.

 

“India must take credible steps to create an enabling environment for constructive engagement. We are neighbours and we are there forever, the choice is ours whether we live in peace or keep on fighting with each other. It is now up to us to resolve our differences, our problems, and our issues through peaceful negotiations and discussions,” Shehbaz Sharif, who became Pakistan's Prime Minister in April this year, said further.