UNITED NATIONS - Pakistan Ambassador Munir Akram’s reference about India’s “illegal and forcible” annexation of Jammu and Kashmir during the UN General Assembly’s debate on Ukraine Thursday drew a response from an Indian representative that led to a verbal exchange with a Pakistani delegate. Indian representative Prastik Mathur termed the ambassador’s remarks “mischievous provocations” as he repeated the claim that Jammu and Kashmir was part of India. Also, he alleged, that Pakistan harbours terrorists with impunity.
In a sharp response, Pakistani delegate Jawad Ajmal said that the repetition by India of a wrong position does not make it acceptable. “The focus of today’s debate is on people, and one of the inalienable rights of the people of the crisis, enshrined in the very first article of the Charter, is the right to self-determination,” he said.
The right of the Kashmiri people to self-determination has been recognized, and promised to them by the Security Council through its resolutions, Ajmal asserted, before highlighting India’s efforts to prevent the exercise of this right through force and fraud.
India, the Pakistani delegate said, had imprisoned the entire Kashmiri leadership, illegally detained Kashmiri youth, executed young boys, violently put down protests and burned down entire neighbourhoods and villages.
Although India has also deployed close to 900,000 security forces to Jammu and Kashmir, making it the most militarized zone in the world, Ajmal said that such measures only serve to intensify the struggle of the people of Jammu & Kashmir for their right to self-determination. Pakistan will continue to expose Indian brutality and inform the international community of Kashmiris’ plight, he added.
