Kashmir never was, never can be an integral part of India: Maleeha

SAYS URI OPERATION WAS ‘DESIGNED’ TO DIVERT INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY’S ATTENTION FROM KASHMIR ASKS INDIA TO FOCUS ON ITS MULTIFARIOUS INTERNAL PROBLEMS AND INSURGENCIES INSTEAD OF FIGHTING FOR BALOCHISTAN

Representatives of Pakistan and India engaged in a verbal duel at the United Nations after Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj accused Islamabad of promoting terrorism and claiming Kashmir to be her country’s integral part that drew a stinging response from Pakistani Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi. “It is India that has long been a sponsor and practitioner of state terrorism,” Ambassador Lodhi told the UN General Assembly while exercising her right of reply to the Indian chief delegate’s statement. She also debunked Swaraj’s claim about Kashmir, saying it is an internationally recognized disputed territory. “Jammu and Kashmir never was and can never be an integral part of India,” the Pakistani envoy said in a hard-hitting statement. Ambassador Lodhi also took exception to the raising of Balochistan issue by the Indian external affairs minister, saying it was a “blatant violation” of the principles of the UN Charter. She described India’s call to isolate Pakistan as “delusional”, saying, “It is India itself, which because of its war crimes in Kashmir and elsewhere, and because of its warmongering, which is likely to be isolated in the international community.” “Over the course of the last half century, India has sponsored and perpetrated terrorism and aggression against all its neighbours; creating terrorist groups; destabilizing and blockading neighbors to do its strategic bidding and sponsoring subversion, sabotage and terrorism in various parts of Pakistan,” Pakistani Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi added. In fact, Ambassador Lodhi said Ms Swaraj’s statement, which contained a series of allegations against Pakistan, was a “litany of falsehoods about Pakistan and a travesty of facts and history”. “We reject all the baseless allegations made in that statement,” the Pakistani envoy said in a hard hitting reply. “These allegations are designed principally to deflect global attention from the brutalities being perpetrated by India’s over half a million occupation force against innocent and unarmed Kashmiri children, women and men in the Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir,” she said “Kashmiri people call for freedom has been met with characteristic Indian brutality,” Ambassador Lodhi said referring to over a hundred innocent Kashmiris have been killed, hundreds blinded and thousands injured by Indian bullets and pellets, including infants, children, women and men. “This is the worst form of state terrorism, a war crime, that India has continued to perpetrate in the situation of foreign occupation in Jammu and Kashmir for the past many decades,” she told the 193-member Assembly. Pakistan, she said, demanded a full and impartial investigation of these Indian atrocities and massive human rights violations in Kashmir. “We ask that India accept the investigation proposed by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and allow them access for the purpose.” “The right of the Kashmiri people to self-determination has been recognized and promised to them by the UN Security Council and by India and Pakistan,” the Pakistani envoy said. Commenting on the Uri attack, Maleeha said, “…the attack on the Indian Army base in Uri, particularly its timing, has all the hallmarks of an operation designed to divert attention from India’s atrocities in occupied Jammu and Kashmir.