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India slams Pakistan for justifying terrorism

Dharam Shourie in United Nations

India has slammed Pakistan for perpetuating and justifying cross-border terrorism.

It also rejected its criticism of the government's handling of the communal violence in Gujarat, questioned the right of its rulers to vilify democratic institutions, and accusing it of treating parts of Kashmir occupied by it as its virtual colony.

In a harshly-worded speech before a committee of the United Nations General Assembly on Monday, Indian delegate Ajit Kumar Panja, Member of Parliament, said it was Islamabad, which had made UN resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir 'unimplementable'.

Pakistan's call for a dialogue with India, he said, sounds hollow in the face of its encouragement to terrorism, which is responsible for widespread killings of innocent people in Jammu and Kashmir whose 'interests it pretends to promote'.

Charging Islamabad with spreading 'misinformation and disinformation' on Gujarat, Panja said, "This is typical of the genetic material of military regimes whose lack of accountability and whimsicality are so intrinsic to their nature that it infects their efforts so demonstrably even during their occasional lapses into surface manifestations of democracy and rule of law."

Panja was speaking after a Pakistani representative had indulged in India bashing during a discussion on 'elimination of racism and racial discrimination and right of peoples to self-determination' in the committee.

It was 'unfortunate and highly regrettable', Panja said, that the representative of Pakistan had chosen a United Nations forum to 'denigrate the elected political leaders of India, including the Prime Minister [Atal Bihari Vajpayee]'.

"Perhaps, we cannot expect anything better from representative of a military dictatorship, which has required a farcical referendum, constitutional amendments and legal framework orders to legitimate itself," he told the delegates.

All Indians have condemned the incidents that have taken place in Gujarat, he said. The democratic institutions that India has built are strong rooted and capable of dealing with their effects, he added.

Panja said the public and private bodies like the National Human Rights Commission, a vigilant media, strong civil society institutions have helped to control the events and prevent communal violence from spreading to other areas.

The President [A P J Abdul Kalam] and the prime minister have expressed their deepest anguish.

But he agreed that there is still need for vigilance especially in the light of the 'nefarious attempts by outside elements to deliberately exacerbate the situation such as was witnessed in heinous act of terrorism in the temple complex of Akshardham in Gujarat'.

Referring to Pakistan's demand for self-determination in Jammu and Kashmir, Panja charged Islamabad with 'indulging in the abuse of the concept' to bolster its agenda of territorial aggrandisement through terrorism against India.

"Pakistan should first ensure the right of self-determination for its own people before sermonising others on it. It should desist from loading its discredited agenda to the legitimate aspirations of others for self-determination," he told the committee.

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