Police officers stand guard at the main entrance gate of the Ministry of External Affairs in Islamabad on January 18, 2024. Photo: File
UNITED NATIONS:
Pakistan lashed out at India for backtracking on its obligations under UN Security Council resolutions guaranteeing the right of self-determination to the people of Jammu and Kashmir, arguing that its colonial project in the disputed territory also flagrantly violated international law.
“Jammu and Kashmir are not, and have never been, an integral part of India,” Pakistani delegate Asif Khan told the UN General Assembly’s Special Political and Decolonization Committee on Monday.
He was exercising his right of reply to the Indian delegate, NK Premachandran, for stating that Kashmir was and “always will remain an integral and inalienable part of India”. Premachandran, who is an MP, also called Pakistan a “source of terror” and went on to comment on its internal affairs.
Asif Khan, Minister of Pakistan’s Mission to the UN, rejected the Indian accusation and called India “the world’s largest producer of disinformation.”
Kashmir, he said, is an internationally recognized disputed territory whose final status will be determined through a free and impartial plebiscite under the auspices of the UN.
“Let me reiterate that the 1960 UN Declaration decrees that ‘all peoples’ under foreign subjugation have the right to self-determination,” he said, adding that the right is also enshrined in the UN Charter.
For long, India has tried to peddle a false narrative, calling the just struggle of the people of Jammu and Kashmir as terrorism,” Asif Khan said.
India’s intransigence in denying the people of Kashmir their fundamental rights, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, mass incarcerations, sexual violence and demographic engineering are the real reasons for the “indigenous” freedom movement.
Although posing as a victim, he said, the truth is that India is the main sponsor of state terrorism in the region, with a dubious distinction of extraterritorial killings. “It has funded and directed terrorist proxies such as the TTP, the BLA and the Majeed Brigade, whose attacks have killed thousands of innocent civilians in Pakistan.”
The Pakistani delegate said India’s claim to be the world’s largest democracy was “hollow”.
“The ruling RSS-BJP ideology has institutionalized Islamophobia and turned persecution of minorities into state policy,” Asif Khan said.
