Right of Reply by India under Agenda Item 5 at the 43rd Resumed Session of the Human Rights Council (15 – 19 June, 2020), delivered by Mr. S. Senthil Kumar, First Secretary, Permanent Mission of India,(Geneva, 15 June 2020) Right of Reply by India under Agenda Item 5 at the 43rd Resumed Session of the Human Rights Council ..

Right of Reply by India under Agenda Item 5 at the

43rd Resumed Session of the Human Rights Council

(15 – 19 June, 2020), delivered by Mr. S. Senthil Kumar,

First Secretary, Permanent Mission of India, (Geneva, 15 June 2020)

Madam President,

India exercises its right of reply in response to the statement made by Pakistan under Agenda item 5.

Madam President,

  1. It’s unfortunate that Pakistan continues to maintain its track record of misuse of the Human Rights Council and its mechanism. It’s a matter of serious concern that Pakistan being the only country in South Asia of effecting a state sponsored genocide would have the audacity to accuse others of it. It’s dangerous that Pakistan now attempts to destabilize the well-established mandate of the Council and it’s mechanisms for serving its narrow political agenda against India.
  2. Our decision of August last year does not have any external ramifications and were taken within the sovereign rights of India. Our people have marched ahead despite Pakistan’s nefarious attempts to derail the process of peace and prosperity.

Madam President,

  1. It’s questionable that a country of serious credibility issues would talk about human rights and self-determination. This country emerged out of religious fundamentalism and bloodshed and its history rigged with assassinations, coups and puppets running. People in territories under its control can’t even claim to have a semblance of only basic rights.

Madam President,

  1. Attention of the Council is drawn to the culture of impunity and crimes against humanity that the regimes and its puppets enjoy in Pakistan. It’s not surprising that Pakistan does not criminalize enforced disappearances. About 2500 people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa continues to be ‘missing’ for their political, religious affiliations or defence of human rights.
  2. Enforced disappearances, state violence and forced mass displacements, harassment, extrajudicial killings, army operations, torture, kill-and-dumps, torture camps, detention centres, military camps are regular features in Baluchistan. Nobody knows the fate of missing 47,000 Baloch and 35,000 Pashtuns till date. Sectarian violence has claimed more than 500 Hazaras in Baluchistan and more than 100,000 Hazaras has fled Pakistan.

Madam President,

  1. Systemic misuse of Blasphemy in Pakistan has terrorized the minorities in Pakistan. The recent fate of two Hindu girls in Sindh, one Christian girl in Lahore, one Ahmadi lady in Chaleki, two professors from Khairpur are the examples of systemic targeting of minorities through blasphemy laws. The state of the Pakistan is well manifested in the impunity in murder of 65 transgenders in Pakistan since 2015.

Madam President,

  1. We could only advise this country to introspect its grave human rights situations before extending unsolicited advice to anybody.

Thank you, Madam President.

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