by Tahir Bhat
SRINAGAR: Exercising first right to reply, Saad Warraich, Pakistani diplomat at the UN said that in India claims of religious superiority are perpetrated through state patronage. He claimed that the “RSS centres of fascism” are “the breeding ground of terrorism” in the region. He termed India “illiberal” which lacks “room for dissent”.
Saad was reacting to the First Right of Reply that a young Indian diplomat Eenam Gambhir. She told the UN General assembly that Kashmir is an integral part of India and Pakistan is hosting terrorists and various organisations which are listed by the UN and other countries.
Speaking about the “victims of terrorism”, the Pakistani diplomat named names. He named Danish Rajab, 24, a resident of Srinagar “whose pellet infects face and vision in left eye tells the story of misfortune that is not particular to him.”
Saad also mentioned 10-year-old Asif Ahmad Sheikh, who “seeks a similar answer from those who extinguished his eyesight.”
“The Indian representative could speak agony of Farooq Ahmad Dar who was tied to Army jeep and driven in front of unarmed Kashmir protestors and used as a human shield,” the diplomat said. “Kaiser Bhat who was run over and killed by military jeep.”
The Pakistani diplomat said members of India’s minorities including Christians and Muslims are publically lynched at the hands of Hindus elites, where an unabashed Hindu extremist Yogi Adityanath who openly supports the superiority of the Hindus serves as the face of the largest Indian state Uttar Pradesh. Earlier, his Indian counterpart had mentioned the exclusion of an Ahmadiya economist from the policymaking group in Imran Khan led Pakistan.
The diplomat said that several Bengalis in Assam have been suddenly made stateless and termed as termites by a prominent Indian leader.
The diplomat said Indian should “look beyond the denial” and admit the Kashmir was one of the oldest disputes on UN charter and that 100 thousand Kashmiris have been killed by the country so far which is well documented. “You can’t hide your aggressive state terrorism against defenseless Kashmiris. You can brutally silence courageous Kashmiri voices like Shujaat Bukhari,” Saad insisted.
Saad accused security set up in Kashmir for resorting to the indiscriminate use of forces against innocent civilians causing widespread death and injuries. He mentioned the recent OHCHR report that speaks of “litany of systematic violation of fundamental human rights of the Kashmiri People.” He insisted that “credibility cannot be gained by discrediting the truth.”
Pakistan was reacting to the statement that Eenam Gambhir, India’s First Secretary in Permanent Mission of India to UN, read in reaction to Shah Muhammad Qureshi’s speech.
“Among the most outrageous was the preposterous allegation relating to the horrific terror attack on a Peshawar school four years ago. Let me recollect for the new government of Pakistan the outpouring of sorrow and pain in India that followed the massacre of innocent children in 2014. Both houses of India’s Parliament had expressed solidarity while paying respect to the memory of those killed. Schools all over India had observed two minutes of silence in their memory,” she said.
She also said that it was a new Pakistan cast in the mold of old and that it had created “the monster of terror” it was now trying to ignore.
She asked Pakistan two questions. “Can Pakistan deny the fact that it is the host and patron of 132 of the UN-designated terrorists and 22 terrorist entities under the 1267 and the 1988 UN Security Council sanctions regime as of today,” the young Eenam Gambhir said. “Will Pakistan deny that UN-designated terrorist Hafiz Saeed enjoys a free run inside Pakistan and spews venom and sets up candidates for electoral office?”
The two countries will be exchanging more verbal blows in coming days as they still have some more “rights to reply” each other’s accusations.
