New Delhi: Hitting out at Pakistan over the rights of minorities and the Kashmir issue, India’s Joint Secretary of UNES (UN Economic and Social), Srinivas Gotru on Wednesday said it is ironic that Islamabad who itself “committed a grievous violation of minority rights,” is talking about the rights of minorities.
Speaking at the UN, the Indian diplomat targeted Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari over his remarks on minorities saying, “It is ironic that Pakistan is speaking about the rights of minorities. For a country that has even stopped publishing its data to hide its same shameful record, it is amazing that they have even brought up this subject. It has a long history of having committed a grievous violation of minority rights that the world has ever seen.”
In his speech at the UN High-Level Meeting on the Rights of Minorities, Gotru pointed out that Pakistan continues to commit grave violations of the rights of Sikhs, Hindus, Christians, and Ahmadis. He also said that thousands of women and children in Pakistan, particularly girls from minority communities, have been subjected to abductions, forced marriages and convergence.
India also reiterated its position on the Kashmir issue saying the entire Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh were, our and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India, irrespective of what the representative of Pakistan believes or covets. “We call on Pakistan to stop cross-border terrorism so that our citizens can exercise their right to life, and liberty. We hope that they will desist from attempts to abuse and politicize such meetings,” he added.
The response from India came amid Pakistan’s foreign minister's accusation at the UN that India is transforming into a Hindu supremacist state as he also raked the issue of Kashmir. "Today, one of the worst manifestations of such Islamophobia is in Hindutva-inspired India. Driven by the ideology of hate against Muslims, the (ruling) BJP-RSS regime is executing its century-old plan to obliterate India’s Islamic legacy and to transform India into an exclusive Hindu state,” Bilawal said.
International Forum for Rights and Security (IFFRAS) has noted that Pakistan is moving in an increasingly conservative Islamist direction, and the situation for Hindus, Christians and other religious minorities, especially that of women, has worsened, according to news agency ANI.
The situation faced by the Hindu and Christian groups in Pakistan is bad in general, but women from these communities are the worst victims of discriminatory attitudes of the authorities, political groups, religious parties, the feudal structure and the Muslim majority.
Religious minority women and girls are abducted, forcibly converted, married and abused, and their families are unsuccessful in their attempts to challenge these crimes using legal avenues, reported IFFRAS.