Human Rights Council needs to denounce Pakistan’s continued support to UN proscribed terror groups: India

United Nations/Geneva, Mar 22 (PTI) Strongly hitting out at Pakistan, India said the UN Human Rights Council needs to “denounce” the continued support that Islamabad has been providing to UN-proscribed terrorist organisations as a matter of state policy and also urgently look at the deplorable state of Christian, Hindu and Sikh minority communities in the country.

“It is tragic, though not surprising, that the failed state of Pakistan, instead of paying attention to the dire security and economic situation within Pakistan, wastes the Council’s time on spewing lies, mistruths and falsehoods about India,” India said as it exercised its Right of Reply at the 49th Session of the Human Rights Council in response to a statement made by Pakistan in the General Debate on Tuesday.

“India is exercising its right of reply in response to the statement made by Pakistan, which in itself doesn’t deserve a response. However, we are dismayed at Pakistan’s persistent misuse of this Council for engaging in malicious and ad nauseam propaganda against India,” First Secretary in Permanent Mission of India in Geneva Seema Pujani said.

She said the Council “needs to denounce the continued support that Pakistan has been providing to UN proscribed terrorist organisations as a matter of state policy.” She said that Pakistan’s leaders, including its Prime Minister Imran Khan, have publicly admitted to their support to terrorist groups and to Pakistan’s complicity in sponsoring cross border terrorism in India, including in the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

“The matters that indeed need urgent attention of the Council are Pakistan’s illegal occupation of parts of the Indian Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh and the continued suffering of the people in Pakistan-occupied territories who are victims of sectarian conflict, systemic persecution by the Army, violence, terrorism, extreme economic hardships, discriminatory policies and denial of even basic human rights,” she said.

Pujani said that the Council also urgently needs to look at the deplorable state of Christian, Hindu and Sikh minority communities in Pakistan, who are tortured, maimed and systemically persecuted on a daily basis and deprived of all their basic rights. “Pakistan has failed miserably in protecting the rights of religious minorities residing in its territory whose number has, therefore, been declining consistently,” she said.

India further said that the Council needs to also focus on the persistent and blatant violations of fundamental freedoms and basic human rights of millions of people in Sindh, Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where mass enforced disappearances, state-sponsored persecution and attacks, including on minorities such as Shias and Ahmadiyyas, are rampant.

PTI YAS CPS