At UN, India alleges Pakistan has committed gravest violations of minority rights in the world
New Delhi’s joint secretary at the UN made the comment after Pakistani foreign minister alleged that India was turning into a ‘Hindu supremacist state’.
India on Wednesday alleged at the United Nations that Pakistan has committed the “gravest violations of minority rights” that the word has ever seen.
Joint Secretary at the United Nations Srinivas Gotru made the statement in response to remarks by Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who alleged that India was turning into a “Hindu supremacist state”.
Gotru said that it was ironic that Pakistan was speaking about the rights of minorities.
“For a country that has even stopped publishing its data to hide its shameful record, it is amazing that they have even brought up this subject,” the diplomat said. “It has a long history of having committed the gravest violations of minority rights that the word has ever seen.”
India said that Pakistan has “decimated” its minorities and that some such communities have become extinct in the country.
“Even today, Pakistan continues to commit grave violations of the rights of Sikhs, Hindus, Christians and the Ahmadiyyas,” Gotru said. “Thousands of women and children, particularly girls from minority communities, have been subjected to abductions, forced marriages and conversions within Pakistan.”
He reiterated that the entire Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh “were, are and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India”. The official urged Pakistan to stop cross-border terrorism, so that “our citizens can exercise their right to life and liberty”.
Earlier, Zardari had said at the United Nations that the “hate-filled Hindutva ideology” of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh had unleashed a reign of fear and violence against Indian Muslims. He had urged the international community to hold the Indian government to account for its “overt espousal of an anti-Muslim, anti-Islam agenda”.