ISLAMABAD - Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi yesterday said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was implementing Hindutva supremacist ideology in his country.
He said that the Indian government continues to curb and undermine the rights of minorities in accordance with extremist ideology.
“The illegal annexation of occupied Kashmir, Babari Masjid judgment, Citizenship Amendment bill which excludes Muslims, are all targeted towards subjugation of Minorities,” he tweeted.
The Foreign Minister voiced his concerns over the brutal and indiscriminate use of force by India on Muslim students of Jamia Millia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University, protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Bill.
The new Indian Citizenship Amendment Act grants sanctuary to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, but excludes Muslims from the list.
The controversial legislation was cleared by the Indian parliament and approved by India’s President Ram Nath Kovind despite widespread criticism by legal experts.
Modi govt continues to curb minorities’ rights under extremist ideology
The United Nations human rights office also voiced concern that the citizenship law is “fundamentally discriminatory in nature” and called for it to be reviewed.
The new law does not extend the same protection to Muslim migrants as to other religious minorities, thereby undermining India’s commitment to equality before the law, enshrined in the Constitution, UN human rights spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said.
“We understand the new law will be reviewed by the Supreme Court of India and hope it will consider carefully the compatibility of the law with India’s international human rights obligations,” Laurence said during a news briefing in Geneva.
Last week, Pakistan had blasted India over the controversial citizenship legislation that discriminates Muslims.
Foreign Office spokesperson Dr Mohammed Faisal said Pakistan “reject comments by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs” about a tweet of Prime Minister Imran Khan regarding discriminatory citizenship bill passed by the Indian parliament this week.
“Many international human rights organizations and neutral observers even from within India have characterized the legislation as discriminatory against Muslims and unconstitutional,” he added.
Prime Minister Imran Khan had tweeted that India had been moving systematically with its Hindu supremacist agenda under PM Narendra Modi. “Starting with illegal annexation and continuing siege of Jammu and Kashmir; then stripping two million Indian Muslims in Assam of citizenship, setting up internment camps; now the passage of Citizenship Amendment Law; all this accompanied by mob lynchings of Muslims & other minorities in India,” he had said.
He added: “World must realise, as appeasement of the genocidal supremacist agenda of Nazi Germany eventually led to World War II, Modi’s Hindu supremacist agenda, accompanied by threats to Pakistan under a nuclear overhang, will lead to massive bloodshed and far-reaching consequences for the world.”
Dr Faisal said that the latest legislation by Indian Lok Sabha offers Indian nationality to the nationals of Pakistan and two other South Asian countries, except Muslims, was premised on a falsehood and was in complete violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international Covenants on elimination of all forms of discrimination based on religion or belief.
“The Lok Sabha legislation is also in complete contravention of various bilateral agreements between Pakistan and India particularly the one concerning security and rights of minorities in the respective countries,” Faisal said.
