india

Updated: Sep 22, 2017 17:21 IST

India called Pakistan ‘Terroristan’ on Friday after the neighbour accused it at the UN general assembly of “war crimes” in Kashmir.

Responding Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s remarks on Kashmir, India said: “In its short history, Pakistan has become a geography synonymous with terror.”

Here are five things India said in its reply to Pakistan during the general debate of the United Nations General Assembly:

1) It is extraordinary that the state which protected Osama Bin Laden and sheltered Mullah Omar should have the gumption to play the victim. By now, all Pakistan’s neighbours are painfully familiar with these tactics to create a narrative based on distortions, deception and deceit. This august Assembly and the world beyond know that efforts at creating alternative facts do not change reality. In its short history, Pakistan has become a geography synonymous with terror. The quest for a land of pure has actually produced “the land of pure terror”. Pakistan is now ‘Terroristan’, with a flourishing industry producing and exporting global terrorism.

2) Its current state can be gauged from the fact that Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, a leader of the UN designated terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba, is now sought to be legitimised as a leader of a political party. This is a country whose counter terrorism policy is to mainstream and upstream terrorists by either providing safe havens to global terror leaders in its military town, or protecting them with political careers.

3) None of this can justify Pakistan’s avaricious efforts to covet the territories of its neighbours. In so far as India is concerned, Pakistan must understand that the State of Jammu and Kashmir is and will always remain an integral part of India. However much it scales up cross-border terrorism, it will never succeed in undermining India’s territorial integrity.

4) We also heard Pakistan complain about the consequences of its supposed counter terrorism efforts. Having diverted billions of dollars in international military and development aid towards creating a dangerous infrastructure of terror on its own territory, Pakistan is now speaking of the high cost of its terror industry. The polluter, in this case, is paying the price.

5) Even as terrorists thrive in Pakistan and roam its streets with impunity, we have heard it lecture about the protection of human rights in India. The world does not need lessons on democracy and human rights from a country whose own situation is charitably described as a failed state. Terroristan is in fact a territory whose contribution to the gobalisation of terror is unparalleled. Pakistan can only be counselled to abandon a destructive worldview that has caused grief to the entire world. If it could be persuaded to demonstrate any commitment to civilization, order, and to peace, it may still find some acceptance in the comity of nations.