Pakistan has slammed the latest Indian campaign to target and kill citizens across the borders, urging the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council to address New Delhi’s new strategy of conducting assassinations. Taking part in a UN General Assembly debate on the “Culture of Peace”, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the UN Munir Akram told the audience that India was targeting Indian Muslims, Christians, as also Muslims of Occupied Kashmir, and called for an end to their harsh suppression. He said “Since the BJP-RSS government assumed office in 2014, hate, oppression, and violence against India’s 200 million Muslims – and other minorities, Christians and the ‘lower-caste’ Dalits – have become rampant and systematic, fueled by the ideology of Hindutva.” The Pakistani ambassador said “Unless Hindutva fascism is opposed, unless the sense of impunity of the BJP-RSS is ended, unless the Indian Muslims are protected against genocide, and unless the Kashmir dispute is peacefully resolved, wider violence and conflict in South Asia is a real and present danger.”

Munir Akram in his speech that comprehensively dealt with how New Delhi’s policies were posing a threat to peace in the region said the world is witnessing the rise of hate, violence and war, with over 300 conflicts are raging across the globe. “The right of peoples to self-determination is being brutally suppressed, especially in Palestine and in Jammu and Kashmir,” Ambassador Akram said, adding, “We see the spread of discrimination, bigotry, xenophobia and Islamophobia even in mature democracies.” Highlighting Pakistan’s efforts to combat Islamophobia, he said, “The world cannot but be deeply concerned at the officially sanctioned manifestations of Islamophobia in India.” India’s Citizenship Law and National Registry list is designed to exclude Muslims from citizenship and to expel them, the Pakistani envoy said. Cow vigilantes, lynch, kill and assault Muslims with official approbation, he said, noting that Muslim men are persecuted for so-called “love jihad” to prevent them marrying Hindu women. Extremist Hindu groups have expressly called for genocide against Muslims, he told the 193-member Assembly.

The organization – Genocide Watch – has warned of the possibility of genocide of Muslims in India as well as in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir. ”And just last week,” the ambassador said, “Prime Minster Modi himself fuelled the hate and violence against Muslims calling them ‘infiltrators’ who would be taking the wealth of Hindu men in India.” India’s rich Islamic heritage is being eliminated, with history text books rewritten to eliminate references to India’s Muslims rulers and its glorious period of Islamic rule. Muslim place names are being replaced by Hindu names, it was pointed out. The Indian Supreme Court not only failed to punish those who destroyed the historic Babri Mosque but allowed them also to build the “Ram Temple” on the site of the destroyed mosque. Hindu groups are seeking to transform other mosques, such as the Varanasi mosque into Hindu temples, with thousands of other mosques and Muslims religious sites across India under threat. In this regard, Ambassador Akram urged the UN Secretary-General to implement the Plan of Action for the protection of religious sites.

“Hindutva extremism has turbo-charged the repression of the people of occupied Jammu and Kashmir,” he said. After the unilateral and illegal measures taken on 5 August 2019 to annex Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, the Pakistani envoy said, India has deployed 900,000 troops to impose what it ominously calls the ‘Final Solution’ for Kashmir. All the pro-freedom Hurriyet leaders remain incarcerated, he said. Over 13,000 young Kashmir men have been abducted and many of them tortured. Hundreds of innocent Kashmiris are extra-judicially killed each year with impunity in fake “encounters” and “cordon and search” operations. Pakistan, he said, has circulated to the United Nations a detailed dossier, with concrete evidence, of over 2400 crimes committed by named Indian officials in occupied Jammu and Kashmir. “The situation in occupied Jammu and Kashmir will never be ‘normal’ until the people of Jammu and Kashmir are allowed to exercise their right to self-determination through a plebiscite held under UN auspices, as called for by several Security Council resolutions and accepted by India, Ambassador Akram said.

“The Jammu and Kashmir dispute is an open wound which can once again trigger a disastrous conflict between Pakistan and India. It needs to be resolved urgently in accordance with the resolutions of the Security Council and the wishes of the Kashmiri people.” Ambassador Akram told the Assembly about the extremist BJP-RSS government’s resort to belligerence and aggression against Pakistan, pointing out that the Indian Defence Minister had threatened to “take over” Azad Kashmir. Their Army Chief has also threatened to cross the Line of Control. “India’s armed forces have adopted dangerous doctrines: ‘Cold Start’, to launch a surprise attack against Pakistan, another contemplating and I quote ‘a limited war under the nuclear overhang’.”

India, he said, is financing and sponsoring terrorist groups, especially the TTP and the BLA, to conduct attacks in Pakistan across the country’s Western borders in an attempt to disrupt the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Pakistan recently informed the Security Council, as well as the Secretary-General and the President of the General Assembly of India’s campaign of targeted assassinations in Pakistan, Ambassador Akram said, emphasizing that this extra-territorial state terrorism is not limited to Pakistan. “It has been extended to targeted killings of political opponents in Canada and attempted in the United States, and probably other countries. The Washington Post reported that Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week told his cheering supporters: “Today, even India’s enemies know: This is Modi, this is the new India. This New India comes into your home and kills you”.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan