National News

An “incessant rant”, a new “diplomatic low”: India slams Imran Khan at UNGA

September 26, 2020
Balaji Subramanian

India on Thursday (September 25) repudiated and slammed Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly.

Indian diplomats gave a strongly worded rebuttal, as they slammed the Pakistani PM Imran Khan for his remarks against India in UNGA speech. India highlighted Islamabad’s support for terror and the indiscriminate religious persecution of minorities.

As Imran Khan’s pre-recorded statement began to play, First Secretary of India’s Mission to UN Mijito Vinito walked out of the hall.

First Secretary Vinito said during the right to reply: “This is the same country that provides pensions for dreaded and listed terrorists out of State funds” and the “same country that has the dubious distinction of hosting the largest number of terrorists proscribed by the United Nations”.

Vinito went on to call Khan’s remarks “an incessant rant” and called his speech “lies, misinformation, warmongering and malice.”

“The words used today at this great Assembly by the leader of Pakistan demean the very essence of the United Nations. For a nation that is deeply buried in medievalism, it is understandable that the tenets of modern civilized society such as peace, dialogue and diplomacy are farfetched,” Vinito said.

He mentioned how Imran Khan had referred to terrorist Osama Bin Laden who was killed by the Americans in 2011 as a “martyr” in the Pakistani Parliament in July and last year. Vinito also pointed out that Khan has admitted that his country has about 30,000-40,000 terrorists who have fought in Afghanistan and in the Indian Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

On religious persecution, the Indian diplomat said, “This is the country that has systematically cleansed its minorities including Hindus, Christians, Sikhs and others, through the abuse of its blasphemy laws and through forced religious conversions.”

“The only crowning glory that this country has to show to the world for the last 70 years is terrorism, ethnic cleansing, majoritarian fundamentalism, and clandestine nuclear trade,” he said.

Vinito was ubiquitous and said, “that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral and inalienable part of India”,. He went on to add, “What should rather be on the agenda of the UN is Pakistan’s deep state and its unrelenting political and financial support to terrorist organizations and mercenaries which are a threat to global peace and security.”

Earlier, Indian envoy to UN, T. S. Tirumurti in a tweet said, “a new diplomatic low”. Indian PM Narendra Modi will address the UNGA later today at 6:30 pm.

During his speech, Khan lamented about the rise in Islamophobia around the world, but at the same time, he simply ignored the sectarian killings of ethnic Baloch, Pashtoon and Shia Muslims who the majority Sunnis consider as ‘Kaffir’ or non-believers, .

 

Just a week ago there was a massive anti-Shia demonstration in Karachi, were Sunni Muslims in blind hatred, could be heard saying, “Kafir, Kafir Shia Kafir,”. In Islam, anyone who is deemed as a Kaffir is considered worthy of being murdered – ‘wajib-ul-qatl’ .

On September 6, a brutal video was posted in twitter were Qaisar Abbas, a Shia Muslim in Kohat city in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan was gunned down in cold blood by an unidentified man as he tended to his shop.

Responding to this blatant hypocrisy of Pakistan Vinto said Islamophobia.“For someone who professes to be a champion of Islam, this is also a country that has encouraged killing of fellow Muslims merely because they belonged to a different sect, or to a different region in Pakistan, and through sponsoring terrorist attacks against its neighbours,”.