Pakistan an arsonist, India slams Imran’s address

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 25

India and Pakistan clashed at the United Nations on Friday as Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan dragged in bilateral and India’s internal issues during his UN General Assembly address.

“This is the country which is an arsonist, disguising itself as a firefighter,” said Indian diplomat Sneha Dubey while accusing Pakistan of sheltering and glorifying Osama bin Laden, who was killed in the cantonment city of Abbottabad.

“Pakistan nurtures terrorists in its backyard in the hope that they will only harm its neighbours,” said the diplomat. She went on the offensive highlighting the violence against minorities in Pakistan as well as the “religious and cultural genocide” in erstwhile East Pakistan.

Dubey asserted that unlike Pakistan, India was a pluralistic democracy with a substantial population of minorities who had gone on to hold the highest offices in the country. She strongly reiterated that the entire UTs of J&K and Ladakh “were, are and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India”. “This includes the areas that are under the illegal occupation of Pakistan. We call upon Pakistan to immediately vacate all areas under its illegal occupation (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir or PoK),” she said.

Her broadside triggered a response from Pakistani diplomat Saima Saleem, who countered the assertion that Kashmir was India’s internal issue. In an apparently coordinated action, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi met UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and gave him a dossier containing “evidence of human rights violations in Kashmir”.

Khan’s acerbic speech in New York was delivered when the Quad Summit was underway in Washington. PM Modi also had a bilateral meeting with US President Joe Biden.