Paris, November 15
India has lashed out at Pakistan over its “juvenile propaganda” on its internal affairs, saying its neurotic behaviour has resulted in the country’s decline to a nearly failed state with radicalised society and deep-rooted “DNA of terrorism”.
Ananya Agarwal, who led the Indian delegation to the UNESCO General Conference being held in Paris, said: “We condemn Pakistan’s disappointing misuse of UNESCO to spew venom against India and politicise it”.
“We take this chair to refute Pakistan’s juvenile propaganda to malign India through fabricated lies, full of deceit and deception,” Agarwal, who is currently posted as a delegate to UNESCO, said while exercising India’s right to reply on Thursday.
“We condemn the unwarranted comments made by Pakistan on the judgment made by the Supreme Court of India. The judgment is about the rule of law, equal respect for all faiths, concepts that are alien to Pakistan and its ethos,” she said on Pakistan’s remarks on the Ayodhya verdict.
India’s statement comes after Pakistan’s Education Minister Shafqat Mahmood expressed disappointment at the Supreme Court’s decision on the Babri Mosque saying it was not in line with UNESCO’s values of religious freedom.
“Pakistan’s neurotic behaviour has resulted in its decline to a nearly failed state with its weak economy, radicalised society and deep-rooted DNA of terrorism,” she said.
Agarwal also reiterated the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity over the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
Pakistan is home to all shades of darkness; from extremist ideologies and darker powers of radicalisation to the darkest manifestations of terrorism, she said while pointing out to a statement by former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf who described terrorists like Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri as “our heroes”.
Agarwal said that Pakistan has been engaging into such diabolic rhetoric to malign India in front of the international community irrespective of the deplorable conditions of human rights suffered by the minority community on its own soil.
Relations between India and Pakistan touched a new low after the Indian government on August 5 revoked the special status given to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 and its bifurcation into two Union Territories. PTI