Unable To Distinguish Between Victim And Perpetrator: India Slams OIC Remarks At UN

UNITED NATIONS : Rejecting the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s remarks regarding Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi’s actions against terror infrastructure in Pakistan, India said the group is “unable to distinguish between the victim and perpetrator”.

Lok Sabha MP from West Tripura Biplab Kumar Deb delivered India’s national statement at the UN General Assembly Sixth Committee on ‘Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism’ here on Tuesday.

Deb is part of a visiting delegation of 15 MPs, who arrived here for their UN familiarisation week.

In his remarks, the former Tripura chief minister responded strongly to the OIC statement that had made references to Jammu and Kashmir.

“I also address now the statement delivered by the chair of the OIC on India’s focused and measured actions against terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, from where terrorist attacks against India were planned and directed,” Deb said.He said it is ‘regrettable that those delivering the statement’ are ‘unable to separate fact from fiction and distinguish between victim and perpetrator’.

Asserting that India retains the right to defend its people against cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan, Deb said there will be consequences for indulging in terrorism.

He also rejected OIC’s ‘unwarranted reference’ to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

“The OIC chair would do better to focus on Pakistan’s illegal occupation, especially in Rawalakot, where wanton killings, brutal violence and the denial of basic rights to the people living there are so visible. Such willful blindness only speaks of bigotry and intolerance,” he said.

The Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) region has been witnessing protests for several months over 12 contentious refugee seats, triggering a crackdown by security forces and allegations of rigging in the recently held elections to the so-called legislative assembly.

Saudi Arabia had delivered the statement on behalf of the OIC at the UNGA Sixth Committee that deals with legal issues.

The OIC referred to the ‘military escalation in Southeast Asia’ and ‘unjustified strikes’ carried ‘on multiple locations in Pakistan’.

It did not mention India.

In May last year, India launched Operation Sindoor targeting terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, in retaliation for the dastardly April 22 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, in which 26 civilians, mostly tourists, were killed.

The attack was perpetrated by The Resistance Front, a proxy of Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba

The OIC statement also referred to the UN Security Council resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir.

Deb said India understands from ‘bitter experience’ that the threat of terrorism is not theoretical but is a ‘persistent and daily reality’.

“For decades, our people have suffered from cross-border terrorism,” Deb said, adding that the terrorist attack in Pahalgam in April last year again demonstrated the devastating human cost of terrorism.

“The Pahalgam terror attack was a calculated assault on our sovereignty, planned and executed by networks that continue to enjoy state patronage, safe havens, and material and logistical support from across our western border,” he said.

Deb underlined that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, including cross-border terrorism, remains one of the gravest threats to humanity, with implications for international peace and security, economic progress, democratic order and human rights.

“It attacks the most fundamental human right of every human being – the right to life. Terrorism is antithetical to the values of the UN. There can be no justification whatsoever for deliberately targeting civilians. There is no distinction between good and bad terrorism,” Deb said.

He referred to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s comment that India considers even a single attack as one too many and even a single life lost as one too many, emphasising that Delhi considers terrorist attacks to be attacks against humanity.

He noted that terrorist organisations are increasingly exploiting emerging technologies for recruitment, radicalisation, propaganda, operational planning and terrorist financing.

“Their anonymity, global reach and speed enable them to evade law enforcement and increasingly target vulnerable youth,” he said.

India pointed to ‘a key gap’ that remains in global counterterrorism efforts – the absence of a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT), despite a draft circulated by India in 1996.

“India reiterates that an early conclusion of the CCIT would strengthen the international legal framework to comprehensively counter terrorism,” he said.

He told the UN Committee that the New Delhi Declaration, adopted at the BRICS Leaders’ Summit last month, not only strongly condemned the terrorist attack in Pahalgam but also condemned any acts of terrorism as criminal and unjustifiable. (Agencies)