Nation with genocidal record lecturing on Kashmir is ironic: India raps Pak at UN

After Pakistan raised Jammu and Kashmir at a UN Security Council debate, India's envoy Harish Parvathaneni accused Islamabad of hypocrisy, saying a country with a history of genocidal violence had no standing to comment on India's internal matters at an international forum.

In Short

• Parvathaneni said Pakistan raised matters that are strictly internal to India
• He cited UNAMA on civilian deaths after strikes hit Kabul's Omid hospital
• The envoy said the attack came during Ramadan after tarawih prayers

India on Wednesday tore into Pakistan at the UN Security Council, saying its “long-tainted” record of genocidal acts showed a pattern of trying to externalise internal failures through violence within and beyond its borders. India’s remarks came at the annual UNSC open debate on the protection of civilians in armed conflict.

India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Harish Parvathaneni, made the remarks after Pakistan’s representative referred to Jammu and Kashmir during the debate. “It is ironic that Pakistan, with its long-tainted record of genocidal acts, has chosen to refer to issues that are strictly internal to India,” Parvathaneni said.

Referring to Pakistan’s strikes on Afghanistan earlier this year, Parvathaneni said, “The world has not forgotten that it was during the holy month of Ramadan in March this year, at a time of peace, reflection, and mercy, that Pakistan conducted a barbaric airstrike on the Omid Addiction Treatment Hospital in Kabul.”

Citing the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, he said, “this cowardly and unconscionable act of violence claimed the lives of 269 civilians and injured a further 122 in a facility which can by no means be justified as a military target.” He also said it was “hypocritical” of Pakistan to speak of high principles of international law while “targeting innocent civilians in the dark.”

According to UNAMA, the air strikes took place at the end of tarawih evening prayers, when many patients were leaving the masjid. Parvathaneni also referred to UNAMA’s assessment that more than 94,000 people were displaced because of cross-border armed violence carried out against Afghan civilians.

He said such acts of aggression by Pakistan should not be surprising from a country that “bombs its own people and conducts systematic genocide.”

Parvathaneni also said Pakistan had sanctioned a systematic campaign of genocidal mass rape of 400,000 women by its own army during Operation Searchlight in 1971. India’s intervention at the debate centred on these allegations as it rejected Pakistan’s attempt to raise what it called an internal matter.

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