Pakistan urges world community to counter all terrorist bodies and ideologies, including Hindutva

Pakistan

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 24 (APP): Pakistan Monday called on the UN Security Council to combat all forms of terrorism and act against all terrorist organizations and ideologies, including the Hindutva extremists in India.

“The world’s counter-terrorism endeavours cannot remain restricted to only some ideologies and selected organizations,” Ambassador Munir Akram said in a statement to the 15-member Council, which held a debate on the UN Secretary-General’s report on “Threats to International Peace and Security posed by Terrorism Actions”.

“We must confront and defeat ISIL and Al-Qaeda and their associated terrorist groups. But we must also confront the terrorism of hate and ambition which currently emanates from other sources, including the Hindutva extremists in India,” he added.

Ambassador Akram said that terrorist organizations like Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), which are affiliated with Islamic State of Iraq and Levant – Khorasan (ISIL-K), continue to target Pakistan from across the Pak-Afghan border, as is pointed out in the secretary-general’s report.

He said that the TTP and JuA receive financial and logistical support from an Indian terror syndicate, whose members include: Angara Appaji, Gobinda Patnaik, Ajoy Mistry and Venumadhav Dongra. Pakistan, he said, had submitted their names for designation in the UNSC sanctions list.

“Pakistan will not rest until this Indian terror syndicate is brought to justice,” Ambassador Akram said, while strongly condemning terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and recounting Islamabad’s success in combating the menace.

“Our people and security forces have fought back with courage and coherence. We have achieved unparalleled success in defeating terrorism within our borders.”

Elaborating Hindutva terrorism’s threat to Pakistan and the entire region, he said that India’s ruling BJP and its parent, the RSS, inspired by the Hindutva ideology, plan to transform India and the subcontinent into a region dominated by the Hindu religion, where minorities either convert to Hinduism or become second class citizens or stateless persons.

In pursuit of these objectives, the Pakistani envoy said the BJP rulers have arbitrarily stripped two million Muslims and Christians in Assam of their Indian nationality. They also destroyed the historic Babari Mosque in Ayodhya in 1992 and were constructing a Hindu Temple at the same site whose foundation stone was “proudly” laid by Prime Minister Modi on the anniversary of the day that this extremist government revoked the so-called “autonomy” of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).

Ambassador Akram said that the Indian government was responsible for the “worst form of state terrorism against the oppressed people” of Kashmir.

“Since 1990, India’s occupation army – which now numbers 900,000 – has martyred over 100,000 thousand Kashmiris, widowed 22,000 women, orphaned 108,000 children and raped more than 11,000 women.”

Following India’s August 5, 2019 siege of 8 million Kashmiris, he said over 600 political leaders have been incarcerated; 13,000 Kashmiri youth abducted and tortured; brutal force used against peaceful Kashmiri protestors; collective punishments imposed, with the destruction of entire villages and neighbourhoods, and hundreds of young Kashmiris killed in escalating extra-judicial executions.

“Not one Indian soldier has been punished for these crimes,” Ambassador Akram told the Council.

“The international community should prosecute those Indian military and civilian personnel who are involved in this state terrorism, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.