On the day the US pulled out of the United Nations Human Rights Council, describing it as a “cesspool of political bias”, India lashed out at UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein for seeking a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the human rights situation in Kashmir.
Hussein, who released the first ever UN rights report on Kashmir on June 14, told the Council on Tuesday that he had been “pursuing substantive engagement with India and Pakistan over the past two years,” and urged the Council to establish a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the human rights situation in
Kashmir, while reiterating his call for access. A picture of several Hurriyat leaders, including some from Pakistan, with Hussein, thanking him for his “historic role” in the release of the report, vindicates India’s position that the report was prejudiced against India.
“We are dismayed at the High Commissioner’s reference to a fallacious and motivated report that has already been rejected by India. This selective compilation of largely unverified information, aimed at promoting a false narrative, distorts the truth,” fumed Rajiv K Chander, permanent representative of India in the UN, in an oral update in Geneva.
“It should be a matter of deep concern for the Council that this report undermines the UN-led consensus on terrorism and, in fact, legitimises terrorism by referring to the UN-designated terrorist entities as “armed groups” and calling terrorists “leaders”. Surely, the Council cannot be oblivious of this attempt to legitimise terrorism, which remains the pernicious violator of all fundamental rights,” he said.
“We condemn all references in this report which seek dismemberment of India,” said Chander. “Our governments, elected through free and fair elections, are sworn to protecting the Constitution that is the bedrock of all our freedoms. It is the cross-border terrorism that seeks to muzzle the voices of our people. The last week’s gruesome assassination of a senior journalist and his security officers, silencing a voice of moderation, and abduction and brutal killing of a soldier while on his way home for Eid in Jammu and Kashmir, are its chilling reminders,” he said.