ISLAMABAD: Pakistan rebuked India at the United Nations (UN) over Indian Occupied Kashmir, calling out what it termed disinformation, military occupation, and human rights abuses in the disputed territory.
According to a statement posted on the social media platform X by Pakistan’s Permanent Mission to the UN, on Monday, Minister Asif Khan said that each year, India comes to the UN with a recycled script of distortions.
He was responding to the Indian representative's earlier remarks related to Pakistan on issues of terrorism, extremism, and the Pahalgam incident.
Khan, speaking on a right of reply at the 4th Committee Meeting on the Decolonization Items, said that, “I am compelled to take the floor to respond to the disinformation-laden remarks of the representative of India.”
Setting ‘record straight’
Setting the “record straight”, he said, “The United Nations has not only the right, but the obligation to discuss the Jammu and Kashmir dispute. Jammu and Kashmir is not, and has never been, an integral part of India. It is an internationally recognized disputed territory whose final status is to be determined through a free and impartial plebiscite under the auspices of the United Nations, as prescribed in multiple Security Council resolutions.”
“India itself had brought the matter to the Council, yet now refuses to honor its solemn commitments under international law and the Charter of the United Nations,” he reminded the meeting.
Alien subjugation
Khan said that the “Declaration of 1960 decrees that ‘all peoples’ under alien subjugation have the right to self-determination.”
He pointed out that “in occupied Jammu and Kashmir, India maintains one of the densest military occupations in the world, deploying nearly 900,000 troops against an unarmed civilian population.”
Debunking India's "false narrative" of framing the struggle of Kashmiris as terrorism, Khan stressed, “India rather needs to introspect to find the real reasons behind the mass resistance in the occupied territory.”
Khan listed “India’s backtracking from its obligations under the UNSC resolutions, its intransigence in denying the Kashmiri people their right to fundamental rights, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, mass incarcerations, sexual violence, and demographic engineering” as the “real reasons for the ‘indigenous’ freedom movement.”
Settler-colonial project
The Pakistani representative said that, “Since August 2019, India has accelerated its settler-colonial project in flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”
“India is the principal sponsor of state terrorism in the region with a dubious distinction of extraterritorial assassinations. It has financed and directed terrorist proxies such as TTP, BLA, and the Majeed Brigade, whose attacks have killed thousands of innocent civilians in Pakistan,” he added.
Hollow claims
The Pakistan representative said, “India’s claim to be the world’s largest democracy is hollow”, adding the country “has become the world’s largest producer of disinformation and intolerance.”
“The ruling RSS-BJP ideology has institutionalized Islamophobia and turned persecution of minorities into state policy,” he said.
Regarding India’s “reckless behavior” earlier this year, Khan said, “It was Pakistan’s responsible posture from a position of strength, and international facilitation, that prevented a dangerous escalation.”
“India’s denials and distortions cannot erase the simple truth: Jammu and Kashmir remains a disputed territory,” he said.
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