Right of Reply by India under General Debate, Agenda Item 4, at  the 48th Session of Human Rights Council (13 September – 08 October 2021) delivered by Mr. S. Senthil Kumar, First Secretary, Permanent Mission of India (Geneva, 27 September 2021)

Madam President,

This is yet another attempt by Pakistan to make baseless and fabricated allegations against India, in its bid to deflect attention of the Council from its failure to guarantee basic human rights and fundamental freedoms to the people living in its territories and Indian territories occupied by it.

2. The Council has seen incessant and irrelevant rants by Pakistani delegates during debates under various agenda items, which only reflects their desperation and paranoic state of mind. The entire territory of Jammu & Kashmir, including the territories occupied by Pakistan, has been, is and shall continue to be an integral part of India. Pakistan, instead of wasting the time of the Council, should devote its attention to the grave human rights situation in Pakistan.

3. It is ironical that a radicalized and failed State like Pakistan, with no regard whatsoever for values and culture of democracy dares to preach the largest and most vibrant democracy like India.

Madam President,

4. Enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and arbitrary detentions of those who try to speak against the establishment carried out by the State’s security agencies are rampant in Pakistan with impunity. Last week, speaking at the Committee of Enforced Disappearances, Amina Massod shared the grief and pain inflicted upon her and several other families by the Pakistani authorities. It has been 16 years, she is still searching her husband who was picked up by the Pakistani forces in 2005.

Madam President,

5. It’s not surprising that Pakistan has consistently maintained its position as the world's epicentre of terrorism and the leading exporter of terror and violence. Pakistan is a country whose former Presidents and Prime Ministers have openly acknowledged the support and inter-operational linkages between Pakistan’s state machinery and the UN proscribed terrorist organizations. We request the Council to call upon Pakistan to take credible and irreversible steps to end state-sponsored terrorism and dismantle terrorist infrastructure in all the territories under its control.

Thank you, Madam President.

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