India on Monday showed a photograph of Lieutenant Umar Fayaz, an army officer who was abducted and killed by suspected militants in Jammu and Kashmir’s Shopian district in May, at the United Nations General Assembly. “This is a true picture”, Indian diplomat Poulomi Tripathi said holding up the photograph, reported the Hindustan Times.

Tripathi’s reference was to Pakistan’s permanent envoy to the United Nations Maleeha Lodhi passing off a picture of a girl injured in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza as a Kashmiri girl left wounded by Indian security forces.

“It [the photograph of Fayaz] portrays a harsh and tragic reality,” Tripathi said during India’s right-of-reply session. “A picture of terrorism emanating from across our borders that the people of India, especially in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, have to struggle with every day. This is the reality which the permanent representative of Pakistan sought to obfuscate.”

Tripathi said Pakistan had displayed the photo of Rawya abu Jom’a, a girl from Palestine, that was taken by an American photographer in July 2014, to mislead the United Nations. She said Pakistan did it to “spread falsehoods about India” and to “push a completely false narrative”.

Strained ties

India and Pakistan have been at odds since the militant attack at the Pathankot air base in January 2016, after which there were more such attacks including one at the Uri Army base in Kashmir. Following this, Pakistan has consistently brought up alleged human rights violations in Kashmir and asked for plebiscites for Kashmiris to decide whether they want to be a part of India.

At last year’s and this year’s UN General Assembly, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj took on Pakistan. This year she said Pakistan was “the greatest exporter of havoc, death and inhumanity”.