India has roundly condemned Pakistan, dubbing it "a global epicenter of terrorism" while pointing out the hypocrisy of Islamabad's assertions of fighting terror's leadership.
“Pakistan is a global epicentre of terrorism, harbouring more than 20 UN-listed terrorist entities and providing state support to cross-border terrorism,” India’s Permanent Representative Parvathaneni Harish said on Tuesday at the Security Council.
“Hence it is a supreme irony when Pakistan pats itself on the back as being at the forefront of the fight against terrorism,” he said.
“India,” he added, “has been a victim of acts of terror perpetrated by this country through terror groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Harkat ul Mujahidin (HuM), among dozens of others.”
Responding to Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar raising Kashmir, Harish said, “In fact, it is Pakistan that is in illegal occupation of parts of Jammu and Kashmir.”
He underscored that the citizens of the Jammu and Kashmir region reasserted their allegiance to India in last year's election.
“The people of Jammu and Kashmir have only last year taken part in a successful election and have voted in large numbers to choose their government,” he said.
“The choice of the people of Jammu and Kashmir was loud and clear,” he said. “Democracy in Jammu and Kashmir is vibrant and strong unlike in Pakistan,” he said.
He added, “Pakistan’s campaigns of misinformation and disinformation, of lies and falsehoods, do not change facts on the ground.”
"As is Pakistan’s practice of bringing up Kashmir during any meeting at the UN without any relevance, this time it was during a Council session on multilateralism and reforming global governance. Dar claimed that the people of Pakistan had been denied their right to self-determination and the Security Council has a responsibility to ensure that its resolutions are implemented. But the Security Council resolution he was alluding to, No. 47 adopted on April 21, 1948, requires the Pakistani government to withdraw “tribesmen” and Pakistani nationals who entered Jammu and Kashmir and “to prevent any intrusion into the State of such elements and any furnishing of material aid to those fighting in the State".
Dar claimed that Pakistan "has been at the forefront of the battle against terrorism" and identified some terrorist groups—Daesh, Al-Qaeda, TTP, ETIM, IMU, and new right-wing extremist organizations—that "need to be countered with the same resolve." Interestingly missing from the list were JeM, which carried out the 2001 Parliament attack in India; HuM, which hijacked an Indian plane; and Lashkar-e-Taiba, which carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed approximately 170 people.
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