'Baseless allegations': Pakistan media reacts to Sushma Swaraj's UNGA statement, claims Mehmood Qureshi 'exposed India'

A day after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj rebuked Pakistan for spreading terrorism in India at the United Nations General Assembly, media outlets across the border gave prominent coverage to her statement. While Geo News dismissed her charges against Pakistan as “baseless”,  The Express Tribune carried a headline, saying Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi “exposes India as state sponsor of terror”. The report by Geo News said, “The Indian minister entirely ignored the worst human rights violations by Indian forces in occupied Kashmir.” [caption id=“attachment_5289671” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sushma Swaraj at the UNGA on Saturday. PTI[/caption] Interestingly, while Geo News quoted Swaraj as saying that the mastermind of the Mumbai terror attacks has not been brought to justice, it refrained from naming Hafiz Saeed. In her speech, Swaraj had made a specific reference to Saeed, a UN-designated terrorist  and how he enjoys impunity in Pakistan. In a similar vein, an opinion piece published on 27 September in The Express Tribune referred to allegations in the Indian media about postal stamps glorifying “martyred Kashmiri leader Burhan Wani”. The article omitted the fact that he was a commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen , which is recognised as a terrorist organisation by the United States and European Union. The report in The Express Tribune, while quoting Qureshi, made detailed references to the Kashmir conflict between the two nations. Qureshi was reported to have said that a recent UN report “on occupied Kashmir has exposed Indian atrocities on innocent civilians”. The report also incorrectly refers to Swaraj as a “diplomat”. While The Nation carried an agency report on Swaraj’s remarks, it published a detailed report with the headline “Qureshi exposes Indian terrorism at UN” on the Pakistani foreign minister’s statements, in which he accused India of “state-sponsored terrorism”. He was quoted as saying that India had called off dialogue with its western neighbour “on flimsy grounds”. This report also quoted Qureshi making an indirect reference to Wani as a “Kashmiri activist”. In a strong attack against Pakistan, India told the UN General Assembly on Saturday that its neighbour’s commitment to terrorism as an instrument of official policy has not abated one bit. “The biggest challenge of our era comes from the existential threats of climate change and terrorism. We imagined that the arrival of the 21st Century would bring with it an age of common good, defined by cooperation in the quest for peace and prosperity. But here, in New York, the horrific tragedy of 9/11, and in Mumbai, the catastrophe of 26/11, became the nightmares that shattered our dreams,” Swaraj said. With inputs from PTI