Staff Reporter
Islamabad
Pakistan on Friday rejected the “gratuitous remarks” by the spokesperson for the Indian Ministry of External Affairs regarding the state of minorities in Pakistan.
“As a perpetrator of unabated state terrorism in occupied Kashmir and systemic state-sponsored discrimination against its own minorities, India is in no position to pontificate on the issue of terrorism or minority rights elsewhere,” said Foreign Office spokesman Zahid Hafeez Chaudri in a statement. The statement comes after India had called the killing of an elderly Ahmadi man in Peshawar earlier this week a “sad reflection of the state of minorities in Pakistan”. “One after another, Ahmadis are being targeted in Peshawar while the government has repeatedly failed to protect and stop the violence against the members of the community,” the Indian spokesman said.
“Regurgitation of fabricated accusations by India does not turn a falsehood into truth,” the spokesman said in the statement Friday.
“Such desperate attempts will not succeed in diverting attention from India’s domestic and foreign policy failures. If anything, these will further undermine India’s credibility as a responsible country.
“India must eschew the use of state terrorism as an instrument of state policy, end its egregious violations of human rights of the Kashmiri people, resolve the Jammu and Kashmir dispute according to UN Security Council resolutions, and take concrete steps to safeguard minorities, including their right to life and protection of their places of worship,” Chaudhri said.
