UNITED NATIONS: India responded with irritation on Saturday to Pakistani allegations of brutality in Kashmir, saying that while India had made substantial progress since independence, all Pakistan had achieved was a reputation as the “pre-eminent export factory for terror.” Addressing the annual United Nations General Assembly, Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj rejected allegations by Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi at the world body earlier in the week in which he accused India of state-sponsored terrorism, and violating human rights.
“Those listening had only one observation: ‘Look who’s talking!’,” Swaraj said. “A country that has been the world’s greatest exporter of havoc, death and inhumanity became a champion of hypocrisy by preaching about humanity from this podium.”
Swaraj said Pakistanis should look at the progress India had made since the two countries emerged on independence from Britain in 1947.
“Why is it that today India is a recognised IT superpower in the world, and Pakistan is recognised only as the pre-eminent export factory for terror?” she said.
Speaking in Hindi for the second consecutive year at the annual UNGA session, Swaraj on Saturday said India has risen despite being the principal destination of Pakistan’s nefarious export of terrorism.
“There have been many governments under many parties during 70 years of Indian freedom, for we have been a sustained democracy. Every government has done its bit for India’s development,” she said, highlighting India’s achievements in the fields of education, health, space, etc.
“We established scientific and technical institutions which are the pride of the world. But what has Pakistan offered to the world, and indeed to its own people, apart from terrorism?” she said.
“We produced scientists, scholars, doctors, engineers. What have you produced? You have produced terrorists. You have created terrorist camps, you have created Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Hizbul Mujahideen and Haqqani network,” she said, adding that if Pakistan had spent on its development what it has spent on developing terror, both Pakistan and the world would be safer and better-off today.
She said the terrorist groups created by Pakistan was not only harming India, but also hurting its neighbours — Afghanistan and Bangladesh — as well.
She said that for the first time in the UN history, Pakistan sought right to reply (RoR) and then it had to simultaneously respond to three nations.
“Doesn’t it reflect your nefarious designs?” she asked the Pakistani leader.
On Friday officials from both sides said shelling along the disputed border between Pakistan and India killed six civilians and wounded 30 more people in the latest confrontation between the two nuclear-armed countries.
On Thursday in New York, Abbasi urged the UN Secretary-General to appoint a special envoy for Kashmir and accused India’s military of brutality in a crackdown against anti-India activists. He said hundreds of Kashmiris had been killed or injured and shotgun pellets have blinded and maimed others.
India rejected the allegation. It accuses Pakistan of backing several anti-India militant groups and helping them infiltrate Kashmir to stoke violence and carry out terrorist acts. Pakistan denies this charge.
