New Delhi, Oct 08 : India on Thursday hit back at Pakistan at the United Nations, saying the victims of the Pahalgam terror attack were singled out and asked their religion not their political orientation before being killed, as New Delhi rejected Islamabad’s “fabricated narrative” on Jammu and Kashmir.
Exercising India’s right of reply at a UN General Assembly session, New Delhi’s envoy said Pakistan had once again “misused” the world body to “peddle falsehoods”, calling its remarks an attempt to communalise a terror attack that India has firmly linked to Pakistan-based outfits.
The victims of the Pahalgam attack were asked their religion, not their political orientation, the Indian representative said, according to officials. This is the reality Pakistan wants to bury under a pile of lies.
India was responding to Pakistan’s delegate, who alleged that the Pahalgam killings were a “false flag operation” and accused Indian forces of atrocities in the Union Territory. New Delhi dismissed the charge as “baseless and malicious”, and reminded the Assembly that Pakistan remains the “epicentre of terrorism” — a country that has for decades sheltered, trained and funded terror groups targeting India.
Pakistan has no standing to lecture India on human rights or democracy. It has institutionalised terrorism as an instrument of state policy and continues to harbour UN-designated terrorists, including those behind the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the Pathankot airbase attack, the envoy said.
The Pahalgam attack, in Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag district, targeted civilians and left several dead and injured. India has maintained that the perpetrators were backed by Pakistan-based terror groups — a charge Islamabad denies.
At the UN, India reiterated that Jammu and Kashmir is an “integral and inalienable part of India” and that matters relating to the Union Territory are “purely internal affairs”.
“Instead of addressing its own grave human rights violations and its complicity in terrorism, Pakistan seeks to divert attention by levelling unfounded allegations against India,” the envoy said, urging the international community to hold Islamabad accountable for its “continued support to terrorism”.
The exchange comes amid heightened tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, with India asserting that talks and terror cannot go together and that Pakistan must dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism on its soil if it seeks normal ties.
