UNITED NATIONS:India has strongly hit back at Pakistan at the United Nations, recalling that Islamabad had refused to accept the bodies of its own soldiers killed during the 1999 Kargil War while now speaking on matters of faith and funeral rights.
India's response came during an interactive dialogue on funeral rights held at the UN. The discussion was based on an interim report by UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief, Nazila Ghanea.
The report had claimed that there were reports of "systematic denial of funeral rights" in cases of people killed in security operations in Jammu and Kashmir, including bodies not being returned to families and secret burials. It stated that such practices disproportionately affected Muslims and raised serious concerns.
Strongly rejecting the reference, First Secretary at India's Permanent Mission to the UN, Bhavika Mangalanandan, said it was highly ironic that Pakistan was talking about religious freedom and burials.
She pointed out that in 1999, Pakistan did not even acknowledge its own soldiers who died in Kargil. It was the Indian Army that recovered their bodies and gave them a burial with full military honours as per Islamic rituals.
Mangalanandan said Pakistan's obsession with Jammu and Kashmir should instead be focused on what is happening in parts of Jammu and Kashmir under its illegal occupation, like Rawalakot.
She added that minorities in Pakistan are shrinking and their rights are being regularly violated, and a country that cannot protect its own minorities has no moral standing to lecture India.
The Indian diplomat also questioned the report's advocacy for burial rights of terrorists. She said a terrorist not only kills innocent people but also damages the psyche of a nation. While the report pushes for rights of terrorists who violate the most sacred right - the right to life - it does not show similar concern for victims of terrorism.
She further said the report goes back five years to find references to India but ignores grave violations that have happened recently in the region and in the developed world.
On COVID-19 related funeral rights violations, Mangalanandan noted that the report mentions such incidents only in the Global South and ignores similar tragic situations in developed countries.
She said Special Rapporteurs should not try to gain political mileage out of people's pain and loss.
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