India on Thursday lashed out at Pakistan at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, saying exporting terror or resorting to theatrics at international forums would not help Islamabad pay off its massive loans.
Representing India at the Geneva council, envoy Kshitij Tyagi demanded the neighbouring country to 'vacate' the illegally occupied parts of Jammu and Kashmir. He was responding to Islamabad's remarks, which the envoy termed as an "extraordinary combination of historical revisionism, invented statistics and sectarian insinuation."
"Since Pakistan appears to need the reminder under every agenda item: Jammu and Kashmir was, is and will always remain an integral and inalienable part of India. The only part of Jammu and Kashmir under foreign occupation is the part Pakistan holds, which we again call upon it to vacate," he said.
The envoy suggested that Islamabad should turn its focus to improving its economy and paying off its debt instead of "coveting territory of others or exporting terror."
"Because neither these, nor its theatrics in the Council, would help repay the loans its economy survives on," Tyagi said.
He also pointed out that Pakistan's minority population, including Hindus, Sikhs and Christians, have shrunk drastically since the formation of the country. "Their daughters are abducted, forcibly converted and married off. Blasphemy laws hang over every minority household. Its own Muslim minorities, Shias, Ahmadiyyas, Ismailis and Hazaras, face systemic persecution, and their places of worship are attacked and desecrated," pointed out the diplomat.
He also recalled how Kashmiri Pandits were driven from their homes in 1990 by Pakistan-sponsored terrorists. “Those same terrorists have since killed Kashmiris of every faith, many of them Muslim. The State that sponsored them is now asking this Council for an inquiry. The irony will not be lost on this Council," he stated.
