India's position on Kashmir "a travesty of history": Pakistan

ISLAMABAD (Web Desk) - The Pakistan’s delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Council strongly rebutted India’s untenable stance on Jammu and Kashmir and slammed its persistent interference in Balochistan.

In strongly worded right of replies, the Pakistan delegate termed India’s attempts to deny its illegal occupation of Jammu and Kashmir a “parody of history,”, said a Foreign Office statement Saturday.

India had brought out a measure in its own parliament seeking to punish those who depict Jammu and Kashmir as disputed territory.

This was yet another poor attempt to change the facts to conform to their own deluded sense of realness.

The Pakistan delegate drew attention of the council to the recent lecture by a Kashmiri member of the Indian Parliament, who has identified the current Indian repression as “worse than that by Nazi military units”.

He emphasized that if India had any regard for international legal philosophy, it would stop its military control and let the Kashmiris freely decide their future through the United Nations’ mandated plebiscite.

The Pakistan delegate observed that they were not surprised by the intemperate remarks of the Indian leadership and the Indian delegation, which constitute open interference in Pakistan’s internal affairs, particularly in Balochistan. This was consistent with their record of interfering in neighboring countries.

“Likewise, the sudden Indian focus on Balochistan was consistent with their playbook of seeking to distract attention from the repression unleashed in IOK.

The increasing international attention being given to the plight of the Kashmiri people is being desperately countered by New Delhi by attempting to shift attention elsewhere,” he said.

The delegate pointed out that Pakistan had scrupulously avoided commenting on India’s internal human rights situation.

But, given the persistent, irresponsible flouting of international norms governing inter-state behaviour by India, we are constrained to point out the abysmal human rights record of the Indian government.

He pointed out the egregious violations of human rights of people in large swathes of India. Over one third of Indian territory is under a full blown peasant insurgency.

There is a despicable human rights situation in Manipur, Mizuram, Tripura, and Assam, and ethnic groups in India’s north-east have been battling for their rights since many decades in the face of terrible repression, he added.

Pakistan has restrained itself from commenting on the unrelenting repression unleashed by the Indian state in many of its areas.

We, instead, only address the situation in Indian Occupied Kashmir, as that is an international dispute acknowledged in repeated UN resolutions.