NEW DELHI: A heated exchange broke out between Indian and Pakistani representatives in Maldives Parliament on Sunday after the neighboring country's delegation veered off topic during a debate on Sustainable Development Goals ( SDG ) to raise the issue of Kashmir.

Addressing the 4th South Asian Speakers' Summit, Pakistan deputy speaker Qasim Suri tried to use the platform to talk about the Kashmir situation following the abrogation of Article 370, which granted special status to the state.

In a swift intervention, Rajya Sabha Deputy Speaker Harivansh Narayan Singh said that a country which perpetrated genocide in Bangladesh in 1971 and illegally occupied Azad Kashmir has no moral right to raise these issues internationally.

"We strongly object to the raising of internal matters of India at this forum. We also reject the politicization of this forum by raising issues which are extraneous to the theme of this summit," he said.

Continuing his tirade, Singh said: "Since they have raised human rights issue of Kashmir, I would like to state facts that Pakistan has occupied our part of Kashmir known as Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

"This Pakistan-occupied Kashmir comprises 2 areas, the so-called Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit Baltistan (GB) which Pakistan has illegally occupied through armed action in 1947.

"Pakistan has kept people of this region guessing on their status. As a constitutional entity, the so-called 'AJK' is unique. It has been given the trappings of a country with a President, a Prime Minister and a Legislature of its own. But the so-called AJK is neither a country nor a province," he said.

The Karachi Agreement (April 28, 1949) truncated POJK and brought more than 85 per cent of the land, strategically important for its connectivity with China and control of rivers, under Pakistan's direct control, Harivansh said.

From the time of the Karachi Agreement, the so-called AJK President and Prime Minister have enjoyed only titular power, that too at the pleasure of the Ministry of Kashmir Affairs, he said.

Amid the commotion, the Speaker tried to calm down the two sides, as the Pakistani representatives continued their fulminations.

Tensions between India and Pakistan spiked after India abrogated provisions of Article 370 of the Constitution to revoke Jammu and Kashmir's special status and bifurcated it into two Union Territories.

Pakistan has been trying to raise the issue at various international fora, but India has maintained that it is an internal matter.

(With inputs from PTI)



In Video: Maldives Parliament witnesses India-Pakistan faceoff over ‘Kashmir’ issue