Pakistan 'nursery and epicenter of terrorism', world doesn't need lessons from them: India at UN

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India on Friday criticised Pakistan for its poor record in providing safety and security to religious and ethnic minorities during the 45th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. Addressing the 45th Session of the Human Rights Council at the UN, Senthil Kumar, First Secretary, Permanent Mission of India, said the world doesn't need lessons on human rights from a country which has been known as "nursery and epicenter of terrorism".

“Before preaching to others Pakistan must remember that terrorism is the worst form of human rights abuse and crime against humanity. The world doesn’t need lessons on human rights from a country which has been known as nursery and epicentre of terrorism,” he said, according to ANI.

Kumar also highlighted the atrocities Balochs have to suffer in Pakistan. “Enforced disappearances, state violence and forced mass displacements, harassment, extrajudicial killings, army operations, torture, kill-and-dumps, torture camps, detention centres, military camps are regular features in Balochistan,” he said.

"Nobody knows the fate of missing 47,000 Baloch and 35,000 Pashtuns till date. Sectarian violence has claimed more than 500 Hazaras in Balochistan and more than 100,000 Hazaras have fled Pakistan," he added.

"The Baloch have never felt safe inside Balochistan and now they do not feel safe even outside Pakistan. The case of the disappearance of Rashid Hussain in December 2018, and the killing of journalist Sajid Hussain Baloch after he went missing in March 2020, only serves to demonstrate that the Baloch human rights defenders are being targeted and eliminated even after they quit Pakistan," he added.

The First Secretary further pointed out that it was a matter "of great concern" that the population of religious minorities in Pakistan which was 23% in 1947 has reduced to an insignificant number.

"The reasons are not hard to find. Systemic discrimination and persecution through killings, violence, forced conversions, forced displacement have nearly annihilated religious minorities in Pakistan. In the Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan has effected demographic change by reducing and driving the real Kashmiris out," he added. 

(With ANI inputs)