'Don't need lessons on human rights from Islamabad': India slams Pak at UN

Geneva, Sep 25: India on Friday launched a blistering attack at Pakistan saying the world doesn't need a lesson on human rights from a country known as the "nursery and epicentre of terrorism".

Addressing the 45th Session of the Human Rights Council at the UN, Senthil Kumar, First Secretary, Permanent Mission of India, Geneva, hit out at Islamabad and said Pakistan "uses every opportunity to make unfounded and fallacious remarks against my country, which reflect their negative and paranoic state of mind".

"Before preaching to others, Pakistan must remember that terrorism is the worst form of human rights abuse and a crime against humanity. The world doesn't need lessons on human rights from a country which has been known as 'nursery and epicenter of Terrorism'," he said.

Kumar further said "Nobody knows the fate of missing 47,000 Baloch and 35,000 Pashtuns till date. Sectarian violence has claimed more than 500 Hazaras in Balochistan and more than 100,000 Hazaras have fled Pakistan."

"The Baloch have never felt safe inside Balochistan and now they do not feel safe even outside Pakistan. The case of the disappearance of Rashid Hussain in December 2018, and the killing of journalist Sajid Hussain Baloch after he went missing in March 2020, only serves to demonstrate that the Baloch human rights defenders are being targeted and eliminated even after they quit Pakistan," he added.

The First Secretary further pointed out that it was a matter "of great concern" that the population of religious minorities in Pakistan which was 23 per cent in 1947 has reduced to an insignificant number.

"The reasons are not hard to find. Systemic discrimination and persecution through killings, violence, forced conversions, forced displacement have nearly annihilated religious minorities in Pakistan. In the Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan has effected demographic change by reducing and driving the real Kashmiris out," he added.