Pakistan denies India’s terrorism charges at the UN General Assembly
After an Indian delegate accused Pakistan of sponsoring and promoting terrorist attacks, a Pakistani diplomat retaliated on Friday, claiming that India engages in state-sponsored terrorism both domestically and internationally.
While exercising her right of reply in the UN General Assembly, Saima Saleem, a counselor at the Pakistan Mission to the UN, stated, “Its (India’s) hypocrisy is well exposed; It cannot hide anymore its aiding, abetting, and financing of terrorism in Pakistan, its covert terrorist networks across the region, and its reign of terror in occupied Kashmir.”
Ms. Saleem was responding to the remarks made by Ms. Petal Gahlot, India’s delegate, in response to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s scathing speech earlier in the day, in which he pointedly recalled the brief military confrontation with India in May, during which Pakistan’s brave armed forces shot down seven Indian aircraft in a display of “stunning professionalism” in response to a “unprovoked aggression.”
The Indian delegation responded by accusing Pakistan of “glorifying terrorism” and providing cover for terrorist organizations such as the Resistance Front (TRF), which India said was responsible for the Pahalgam bombing but which denied any connection.
“Through its proxies like TTP (Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan), BLA (Balochistan Liberation Army), and (its) Majeed Brigade, Indian-sponsored terrorism has not only claimed the lives of thousands of innocent civilians in Pakistan, but it has also turned places of worship, learning, and livelihood into sites of carnage,” Ms. Saleem said in response to the Indian accusations regarding terrorism.
“This forum certainly needs no sermons from an aggressor, occupier, and perpetrator of state-sponsored terrorism,” she said, alluding to Pakistan’s sacrifices in the international war against terrorism.
She went on to say that Pakistan not only denounced the Pahalgam event but also demanded independent, unbiased, and credible investigations. “India ought to have consented to such investigations if it had nothing to conceal.”
According to Ms. Saleem, Pakistan avoided harming civilians or civilian infrastructure by maintaining a principled and balanced strategy prior to, during, and after the conflict.
It turned to justifications when its adventurism failed, but the fact could not be hidden. The international community has presented indisputable proof of Indian casualties, broken the fiction of military might, and burst the bubble of pride.
The Pakistani diplomat claimed that India’s failure to abide by the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty has exposed it as a flagrant breach of international law and that by turning water into a weapon, it has shown that it is a state that jeopardizes regional peace, denies millions of people their right to water, and violates the sanctity of humanitarian agreements.
She claimed that Muslims are lynched for their faith, Christians are attacked for their worship, Sikhs are attacked for their identity, and Dalits are dehumanized because of their caste under the RSS-BJP government in India.
The world has not forgotten Manipur, where hundreds were killed and thousands displaced; Delhi, where mobs raged while police turned a blind eye; or Gujarat, where thousands of Muslims were slaughtered under official sponsorship. India’s history is not only etched in blood but also in words: blatant cries for genocide, cruel statements from its top leaders, and a complicit media that promotes hatred. Islamophobia is now institutionalized in Indian law, accepted in politics, and exalted in the media in a country that is notoriously intolerable.
Beyond its boundaries, she claimed, India pays proxies to destabilize the area, intimidates neighbors, obstructs regional collaboration, and exports bloodshed overseas through extrajudicial killings. “This is the face of ‘New India’: Hindutva ideology at its core, Islamophobia at home, and aggression abroad.”
Ms. Saleem stated that the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir is not and has never been an essential part of India, pointing out that it has become one of the most militarized regions in the world due to the presence of 900,000 occupation troops.
Thousands of fictitious encounters, enforced disappearances, unmarked graves, custodial killings, systemic sexual abuse, the installation of harsh laws, and frequent media bans are the sadly consistent results. In an area where decolonization is still ongoing, India has been using illegal demographic engineering to speed up its settler-colonial agenda since August 2019.
According to her, Pakistan would keep exposing India’s hypocrisy, including its occupation, double standards, denial of Kashmiris’ human rights, and disinformation campaign.
“The people of Jammu and Kashmir deserve justice, dignity, and freedom by exercising their right to self-determination, and they will eventually have freedom.” “We will not allow hollow rhetoric to divert attention from the fundamental issue.”