India on Thursday (local time) launched a sharp attack on Pakistan over its continued support to terrorism and questioned the neighbouring country over religious freedom, while rejecting a report by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants.
India's response was delivered by Bhavika Mangalanandan, who is the country's First Secretary at the UN.
Questioning the report's methodology, Mangalanandan said it attributes that all wrong practices during the COVID-19 pandemic happened only in the Global South, turning a "blind eye to similar tragic situations" in the developed world.
Taking a swipe at Pakistan, she said terrorists operate freely in the neighbouring country and their burials are being justified. She pointed out that a terrorist not only kills innocent people but also damages the psyche of a nation.
"Legal limits should be determined in accordance with the principles of sovereign rights," she said. "It's a price that the fervent advocacy for the rights of terrorists who violate the most sacred right of humans, the right to life, does not similarly extend to the victims of terrorism."
Mangalanandan, a seasoned diplomat, continued schooling Pakistan and recounted how Islamabad refused to accept the bodies of its soldiers who were killed during the 1999 Kargil War. She described it as ironic that a country which refused to accept its fallen soldiers "unabashedly speaks with fervor on faith, religious freedom and burials."
"Let me remind them it was an Indian army who buried a number of Pakistani soldiers with military honours and in accordance with Islamic rights," she said.
Mangalanandan also rejected Pakistan's remarks on the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir, and said Islamabad should focus on the territories under its illegal occupation and developments there.
"Pakistan's deep obsession with what is happening in the Indian Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir should be actually directed at the developments that are underway in the parts of Jammu and Kashmir under its legal occupation such as Rawalakot. In Pakistan a number of minorities are shrinking, their rights regularly abused," she said.
"A state that cannot ensure the safety of its own minorities has no standing to lecture India," she concluded.
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