India has slammed Pakistan at the UN Human Rights Council, saying it doesn't need lessons from a “terror sponsor” that continues to finance and shelter the very networks that threaten global security.
"We are compelled, once again, to address provocations from a country whose own leadership recently likened it to a "dump truck", perhaps an inadvertently apt metaphor for a state that continues to deposit recycled falsehoods and stale propaganda before this distinguished Council,” Kshitij Tyagi, Counsellor, Permanent Mission of India, Geneva, said on Tuesday.
Mr Tyagi delivered India's Right of Reply at the General Debate on the oral update by the High Commissioner at the 60th Session of the Human Rights Council after remarks regarding India were made by Pakistan.
In the stern message, Mr Tyagi recalled the “carnage" of Pahalgam, where Pakistan-sponsored terrorists turned a meadow of joy into a killing field in April this year.
“Lest we forget 9/11, as the world marks its anniversary tomorrow, even as we witness today the hypocrisy of those who sheltered its mastermind and glorified him as a martyr,” he said, referring to slain Al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, who was killed in a US Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan's Abbottabad.
“Lest we forget Pulwama, Uri, Pathankot, Mumbai... The list is endless,” he added.
Mr Tyagi said that despite this, Pakistan “demonstrates the audacity to take the floor today, feigning moral outrage while continuing to finance and shelter the very networks that threaten global security. The international community recognises this charade for what it is.” Asserting that the world and India will not forget, Mr Tyagi said India's “measured and proportionate” response to the Pahalgam attack made that sufficiently clear.
“We need no lessons from a terror sponsor; no sermons from a persecutor of minorities; no advice from a state that has squandered its own credibility,” he said.
“Pakistan's systematic abuse of this forum, coupled with its routine manipulation of the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) as its mouthpiece, has become a familiar pattern. Its pathological fixation on India appears to provide it with existential validation. Yet, we must respond, lest we forget,” he said.
He added that India will continue to protect its citizens with unwavering resolve and will defend its sovereignty without compromise. “And we will continue to expose, time and again, the elaborate deception of a failed state whose survival depends upon trafficking in terror and tragedy,” he said.
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