India hits out at Pak, OIC for raising Kashmir issue at UN Human Rights Council

New Delhi: India on Wednesday hit out at Pakistan as well as the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) for raising the Kashmir issue at the UN Human Rights Commission and said the grouping has “helplessly” allowed itself to be held “hostage” by Islamabad. At the 48th session of the human rights council, India said Pakistan has been globally recognised as a country openly supporting, training, financing and arming terrorists including UN proscribed terrorists as a matter of state policy. India’s response was delivered by Pawan Badhe, first secretary in India’s permanent mission in Geneva. Exercising India’s rights to respond to comments made by Pakistan and the OIC on Kashmir, Badhe said it does not need lessons from a “failed state” like Pakistan which is the “epicentre of terrorism and worst abuser of human rights”. He said it has become a habit for Pakistan to misuse the platforms provided by the council to propagate its false and malicious propaganda against India. “The council is aware of Pakistan’s attempts to divert the council’s attention from serious human rights violations being perpetrated by its government, including in the territories occupied by it,” Badhe said. “India, as not only the world’s largest democracy but a robustly functional and vibrant one, does not need lessons from a failed state like Pakistan which is the epicentre of terrorism and worst abuser of human rights,” he said. The Indian diplomat said Pakistan has failed to protect the rights of its minorities, including Sikhs, Hindus, Christians and Ahmadiyas. “Thousands of women and girls from minority communities have been subjected to abductions, forced marriages and conversions in Pakistan and its occupied territories,” Badhe said in his statement. “Pakistan has been engaged in systematic persecution, forced conversions, targeted killings, sectarian violence and faith-based discrimination against its ethnic and religious minorities,” he said. Badhe said incidents of violence against minority communities, including attacks on their places of worship, their cultural heritage, as well as their private property have taken place with impunity in Pakistan. “Pakistan is a country which has been globally recognised as a country openly supporting, training, financing and arming terrorists including UN proscribed terrorists, as a matter of state policy,” he said. “The relevant multilateral institutions have been raising serious concerns on its failure to stop terror financing and lack of effective actions against terror entities,” Badhe said. He said dissenting voices from civil societies, human rights defenders, journalists are muzzled daily in Pakistan, with the support of the government. “Enforced disappearances, extra judicial killings, murders and abductions have been used as a tool for subjugation and to muzzle any form of dissent or criticism. The impunity with which such abuses have been carried out exposes the hollowness of Pakistan’s commitment to human rights,” Badhe added. He also slammed the OIC for raising the Kashmir issue at the council, asserting that the group has no locus standi to comment on internal affairs of the country. “We once again regret and reject the reference made by the OIC to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir which is an integral part of India,” Badhe said. “The OIC has helplessly allowed itself to be held hostage by Pakistan, which holds the chairmanship of their Geneva Chapter, to subserve 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 said.