India hits back after Pakistan caretaker PM raises J&K at UN: ‘Malicious propaganda’

India on Friday called out Pakistan after its caretaker prime minister Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar raised Jammu and Kashmir in his address to the UN General Assembly. Kakar had called Kashmir as the key to peace between India and Pakistan.

Petal Gahlot, India’s first secretary at United Nations for second committee of UNGA, said,”Pakistan has become a habitual offender when it comes to misusing this August forum to peddle baseless and malicious propaganda against India”.

“Member states of the United Nations and other multilateral organisations are well aware that Pakistan does so to deflect the international community’s attention away from its own abysmal record on human rights. We reiterate that the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir are an integral part of India. Matters pertaining to the UTs of J&K and Ladakh are purely internal to India. Pakistan has no locus standi to comment on our domestic matters”, she added.

Over the years, Pakistan has been trying to internationalise Jammu and Kashmir at global forums including the UN. India has been calling out Pakistan for sheltering terrorism on its soil.

“Pakistan obviously is the exception when it comes to the neighbourhood. The fact is we can’t allow terrorism to be normalised. We can not allow that to become a basis to come into discussion with Pakistan”, external affairs minister S Jaishankar had said in June this year.

The tensions between India and Pakistan escalated after the Pulwama terror attack on February 14, 2019 in which 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel lost their lives. India responded by carrying out airstrikes in Balakot in Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Six months later that year, India abrogated Article 370, revoking the special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. Following the removal of the Article 370, the former state was split into two territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.