UNITED NATIONS  -  Pakistani and Indian delegates engaged in a verbal duel at the UN, after Pakistan’s Care­taker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar drew the world com­munity’s attention to the unresolved Kashmir dispute and to India’s grave human rights abuses in the occupied territory. Indian dele­gate Petal Gahlot react­ed to the prime minis­ter’s reference to the deteriorating situation in Jammu and Kashmir during the general de­bate at the 78th session of the UN General Assembly, claiming that the disputed Himalayan state is an inte­gral part of India. “Pakistan has no locus standi to com­ment on our domestic mat­ters,” she asserted.

Ms. Gahlot also accused Pakistan of involvement in terrorism and urged Is­lamabad to concern itself with the “deplorable” con­ditions of minorities and women in the country. Pa­kistan’s delegate Saima Sal­eem hit back. She rejected India’s claim that Jammu and Kashmir was its inte­gral part, saying “It never was, it never will be.”

The UN Security Coun­cil has affirmed that the fi­nal disposition of the ter­ritory will be decided by a plebiscite, which India ac­cepted under Article 25 of the Charter of the Unit­ed Nations. India, she said, had failed to implement the UNSC resolutions ,”through fraud and force”, and sup­pressed Kashmiri demands for the right to self-deter­mination by imposing oc­cupation and, on 5 August 2019, annexing Jammu and Kashmir.

The Pakistani delegate said that the entire Kashmiri population has been the vic­tim of India’s brutal tactics.

“A classic colonial-settler project is underway,” Ms. Saleem said.

The Kashmiri freedom struggle not terrorism, she said, adding that the resis­tance to foreign occupation is “just and legal” under in­ternational law. “It is India’s oppression that is illegal,” the Pakistani delegate said.

India must be held re­sponsible for its war crimes in the territory; it is not a victim but a serial sponsor of terrorism against each of its neighbours, Ms.Saleem stressed. “Now, India’s ter­rorist franchise has gone global,” she said in an ob­vious reference to the kill­ing of a Sikh leader on Ca­nadian soil, a murder in which Prime Minister Jus­tin Trudeau the Indian state was involved. The Pakistani delegate also called for re­moving India’s sense of im­munity, while urging the world to stop giving that country a free pass for stra­tegic reasons.