NEW YORK: 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!’,” Sushma 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.”
Her 22-minute speech delivered in Hindi sought to contrast India’s progress that is helping the world deal with a multitude of challenges with Pakistan.
She 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.
“We are eliminating poverty by investing in the poor,” she said of Indian PM Narendra Modi’s approach, which she said was a departure from the “traditional method” of “incremental levels of aid and hand-holding”. “… Our Prime Minister Narendra Modi has chosen the more radical route, through economic empowerment. The poor are not helpless; we have merely denied them opportunity,” she said, emphasising that the complete eradication of poverty was the most important priority of the present government.
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.
The firing took place across the frontier separating Pakistan’s Punjab province from Indian-held Kashmir’s Jammu region, and most of the casualties were reported on the Pakistani side.
On Thursday in New York, PM 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.
Published in Daily Times, September 24th 2017.
