Condemning the Indian government’s move to implement the 2019 controversial citizenship law, Pakistan said on Thursday the discriminatory legislation has further exposed the “sinister agenda” of the Narendra Modi regime.
Speaking at a weekly press briefing, spokesperson for Pakistan’s Foreign Office Mumtaz Zehra Baloch said, “Yes, we have seen the reports on notification of certain news pursuant to the Indian Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 and the ugly debate that is currently taking place in India with regards to Muslims, minorities and immigrants.”
Baloch said the legislation and relevant rules were discriminatory in nature as they differentiate amongst people on the basis of their faith. She said these regulations and laws are premised on a false assumption that minorities are being persecuted in Muslim countries of the region and the facade of India being a safe haven for minorities.
The foreign office spokesperson said, “The rising wave of Hindutva under the BJP government has led to rapid political, economic and social victimisation of Muslims and other religious and social minorities, including Dalits.”
She added, “The discriminatory steps further expose the sinister agenda of transforming India into a Hindu Rashtra.”
She also referred to a statement of group of UN Special Rapporteurs urging corrective actions to protect human rights and attacks against minorities in the run-up to India’s national elections.
Baloch said the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights too labelled this act of the Modi government and the regulations as fundamentally discriminatory in nature and in breach of India’s international obligations.
She concluded, “With that, we urge India to take action to protect its own minorities, especially Muslims, who are in a very difficult situation, because of the rising Hindutva in India and the threat that it poses to Indian society and to the region at large.”
Weeks before Modi seeks the third term for his Hindu nationalist government, India has moved to implement the controversial law, which is being seen as discriminating against Muslims.
The controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) grants Indian nationality to Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians who fled to Hindu-majority India due to religious “persecution from Muslim-majority Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan before December 31, 2014”.
The Modi government did not implement the law after its December 2019 enactment because protests and sectarian violence broke out in New Delhi and elsewhere. Scores were killed and hundreds injured in clashes.
