New Delhi: India on Friday exercised it's Right of Reply' after Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif made statements about minorities in India and brought up the issue of Kashmir at the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) debate. Indian diplomat Mijito Vinito asked Pakistan to introspect before levelling false allegations against India. He said that instead of making claims about Jammu and Kashmir, Islamabad should stop "cross-border terrorism".
"When young women in the thousands from the minority community are abducted as an SOP, what can we conclude about the underlying mindset?" he remarked, as quoted by news agency ANI.
He further said, "It is regrettable that the Prime Minister of Pakistan has chosen the platform of this august assembly to make false accusations against India. He has done so to obfuscate misdeeds in his own country and to justify actions against India that the world considers unacceptable."
The Indian diplomat crticisied Pakistan for "sponsoring cross-border terrorism": "A polity that claims it seeks peace with its neighbours would never sponsor cross-border terrorism. Nor would it shelter planners of the horrific Mumbai terrorist attack, disclosing their existence only under pressure from the international community."
On the issue of atrocities against its minorities, he referred to recent incidents of forced abduction and marriage of girls from Hindu, Sikh and Christian families in Pakistan and "conversions within Pakistan".
"It is about human rights, about minority rights and about basic decencies," the Indian diplomat said. "Such a country would not make unjustified and untenable territorial claims against neighbours. It would not covet their lands and seek to illegally integrate them with its own. But it is not just about the neighbourhood that we have heard false claims today," he added, as quoted by ANI.
Vinito said that the desire for peace, security and progress in the Indian subcontinent is real. It is also widely shared and it can be realised.
"That will surely happen when cross-border terrorism ceases, when governments come clean with the international community and their own people, when minorities are not persecuted and, not least, when we recognize these realities before this Assembly," the diplomat stated.
Earlier, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif spoke about the Kashmir issue in the UNGA. He made allegations against India accusing the Centre of turning Kashmir into a Hindu-majority territory through illegal demographic changes.
Prior to that, Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had brought up the Kashmir issue in New York. He said that Islamabad hasn't seen any signs of rebuilding relations with India while speaking during a question and answer session following the address to The Council of Foreign Relations in New York.
The statements were made at a time when the country is facing devastating floods.
(With Agency Inputs)