46^th session of the Human Rights Council
(22 February to 23 March 2021)

Right of Reply under Agenda Item 2: Oral update by the High Commissioner delivered by Mr. Pawankumar Badhe First Secretary, Permanent Mission of India,
[Geneva, 02 March 2021]

Madam President,

We exercise our right of reply to the statements made by Pakistan and the OIC under the agenda Item 2.

2. The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the way we are conducting this Session. However, Pakistan’s deliberate misuse of this august forum for its malicious propaganda against India, aimed at diverting the attention of the Council from its own serious violations of human rights, has remained a constant.

Madam President,

3. The members of this Council are well aware that Pakistan has provided pensions to dreaded and listed terrorists out of State funds and has the dubious distinction of hosting the largest number of terrorists proscribed by the United Nations. Pakistani leaders have admitted the fact that it has become a factory for producing terrorists. Pakistan has ignored that terrorism is the worst form of human rights abuse and the supporters of terrorism are the worst abusers of human rights.

4. The Council should ask Pakistan why the size of its minority communities such as Christians, Hindus and Sikhs has drastically shrunk since independence and why they and other communities such as Ahmadiyyas, Shias, Pashtuns, Sindhis and Baloch, have been subjected to draconian blasphemy laws, systemic persecution, blatant abuses and forced conversions. Holy and ancient sites of religious minorities in Pakistan have been attacked and vandalized daily.

5. Enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and, arbitrary detentions of those who try to speak against the establishment are rampant in Pakistan and have been carried out by the State’s security agencies with impunity. Recently, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the key suspect in murder of journalists Daniel Pearl, was allowed to go scot free. Disappearances and killings of Baloch Human Rights defenders show that Human Rights defenders are not safe, even after they leave Pakistan. Idris Khattak, a human rights defender who was picked up in November 2019 continues to be in secret detention.

6. Pakistan, a country in dire economic situation, will be well advised to stop wasting time of the Council and its mechanisms, stop state-sponsored cross-border terrorism and end institutionalized violation of human rights of its minority and other communities.

Madam President, 

7. We reject the reference to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir in the statement of the OIC. It has no locus standi to comment on matters related to Jammu and Kashmir, which is an integral and inalienable part of India. It is regrettable that OIC continues to allow itself to be exploited by Pakistan to indulge in anti-India propaganda.

Thank you, Madam President.

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