'Don't need lessons': India hits out at Pakistan at 45th UN Human Rights Council

In a befitting reply, India on Friday showed the mirror to Pakistan which once against ranted about Kashmir in the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). While addressing the 45th Session of the UNHRC, Senthil Kumar, First Secretary, Permanent Mission of India in Geneva, said that the world doesn't need lessons on human rights from a country which is known as the "nursery and epicentre of terrorism".

"Before preaching to others, Pakistan must remember that terrorism is the worst form of human rights abuse and a crime against humanity. The world doesn't need lessons on human rights from a country which has been known as 'nursery and epicentre of Terrorism'," he said.

READ | 'Why Pakistan Still Part Of UNHRC?': European Think-tank Exposes Terrorism & Atrocities

READ | Pakistan's FIA Charges 49 Journalists Under Draconian PECA, Activists Lash Out

Lists out Pakistan's human rights violations

Hitting out at Pakistan which constantly makes attempts to point finger on India when Pakistan itself is in dire need of massive improvements in the human rights situation, Senthil Kumar said that Pakistan "uses every opportunity to make unfounded and fallacious remarks against my country, which reflect their negative and paranoic state of mind".

While exposing Pakistan over its human rights violations, Kumar further said "Nobody knows the fate of missing 47,000 Baloch and 35,000 Pashtuns till date. Sectarian violence has claimed more than 500 Hazaras in Balochistan and more than 100,000 Hazaras have fled Pakistan."

Senthil Kumar backed his claims by giving instances about how people are not safe in Pakistan occupied territories. He said, "The Baloch have never felt safe inside Balochistan and now they do not feel safe even outside Pakistan. The case of the disappearance of Rashid Hussain in December 2018, and the killing of journalist Sajid Hussain Baloch after he went missing in March 2020, only serves to demonstrate that the Baloch human rights defenders are being targeted and eliminated even after they quit Pakistan."

He even highlighted the drastic drop in the population of religious minorities in Pakistan from 23% in 1947 to an insignificant number now, calling it a matter of great concern. "The reasons are not hard to find. Systemic discrimination and persecution through killings, violence, forced conversions, forced displacement have nearly annihilated religious minorities in Pakistan. In the Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan has effected demographic change by reducing and driving the real Kashmiris out," he said.

(With ANI inputs)

READ | MEA Lambasts Pakistan's Attempt To Alter Illegally Occupied Gilgit-Baltistan's Status

READ | India Slams Pakistan For Masquerading As ‘champion Of Human Rights’ At UN Forum