Right of Reply by India under Agenda Item 5 at the

42^nd Session of the Human Rights Council (09-27 September 2019)

delivered by Ms. Mini Devi Kumam, First Secretary,

Permanent Mission of India [Geneva, 19 September 2019]

Mr. Vice President,

We exercise our right to reply to the statements made by Pakistan today.

2. We deplore repeated misuse of the Council by Pakistan with fabricated narratives against India. Our decision in Jammu and Kashmir is within our sovereign right and is an internal matter of India. None of Pakistan’s attempts to mispresent our decision under different agendas can hide its territorial ambitions over Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan’s frantic reactions could be well understood as our decision is creating obstacles in Pakistan’s continuous sponsorship of cross border terrorism against India.

3. While talking about acts of reprisals, let me turn to Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir and territories under its control. Cases of enforced disappearances, murders, detentions, custodial deaths and torture of civil rights activists, representatives of local political parties and journalists are common and standard practice adopted to silence voices against the Government and deep state in Gilgit-Baltistan. Rampant media censorship blocks channels of expression of popular resentment and ensures that the correct ground realities are never reported. The police brutality including aerial firing in Gilgit killing and injuring civilian protestors for demanding their basic political, constitutional and civil rights many times this year could not find prominence even in the domestic media of Pakistan.

4. Over the years, Pakistan establishment has kept key activists and journalists under detention for voicing legitimate demands of the people in POJK and other occupied territories. Baba Jan, Husnain Karmal, Safdar Ali, Inam Aziz, Sanaullah Khan, Inayat Karim, D.J. Mathal, Ijlal Hussain, Irfan Karim are some to name a few. It’s not surprising that Pakistan has also driven out 10 international NGOs in 2017 and 18 international agencies in 2018 from POJK to prevent exposure of all human rights violations. That’s what we expect from Pakistan.

Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

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