India's Permanent Representative, P Harish, has roundly condemned Pakistan's "fanatical mindset," maintaining that repeatedly taking up the issue of Kashmir in international forums will neither sanctify cross-border terrorism nor change the reality that the territory is part of India.
His comments were made on Friday in reaction to Pakistan's erstwhile Foreign Secretary, Tehmina Janjua, who raised the issue of Kashmir at an informal General Assembly session convened to mark the International Day to Combat Islamophobia.
"As is their habit, Pakistan's ex-Foreign Secretary has again made an unjustified allusion to the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir," Harish said. "Frequent allusions to Kashmir will not legitimize their claims or justify their ongoing support for cross-border terrorism."
He continued to underline Pakistan's record, saying, "The extremist ideology of this nation is well chronicled, as is its record of intolerance."
"Such efforts will not change the fact that Jammu and Kashmir was, is, and will always be an integral part of India," he asserted.
In the United Nations, Pakistan's continued attempts to internationalize Kashmir have largely fallen on deaf ears, with no other nation picking up the issue despite being raised repeatedly by Pakistani officials.
Janjua, a former Foreign Secretary in Pakistan between 2017 and 2019, attended the meeting as a guest speaker, not as an official Islamabad representative.
While making her speech, she tried to make parallels with Kashmir and Gaza, a frequent rhetoric exercised by Pakistan. She asserted, "Islamophobia is a major factor behind the horrific killings of Muslims in occupied territories, such as in Indian-occupied Kashmir and Palestine."
Moreover, she referred in a subtle manner to "lynchings" involving "Love Jihad" and "cow vigilantes."
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