Karak incident: Pakistan rejects unwarranted assertions by Indian MEA

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has categorically rejected completely unwarranted assertions by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in connection with the Hindu temple incident in Karak, ARY News reported on Saturday.

The Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said in a statement, “This is not the first time the Indian Government has tried to feign concern for minority rights elsewhere while being the most egregious and persistent violator of minority rights itself.”

“From discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) to National Register of Citizens (NRC); from the Gujarat massacre of 2002 to the Delhi pogrom of 2020; from the reprehensible demolition of Babri Mosque in 1992 to the despicable acquittal of all the accused by Indian court in 2020; from blaming Muslims for spreading Coronavirus to banning of inter-faith marriages; from cow vigilantism and mob lynchings to terming the Muslims of West Bengal ‘termites’ and threatening to ‘throw them into the Bay of Bengal’; from extra-judicial killings of innocent Kashmiris to blatant attempts to turn Muslims into a minority in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IIOJK) through distribution of ‘fake domicile certificate’, the RSS-BJP regime’s record is replete with instances of gross and systemic violations of the rights of minorities, in particular Muslims.”

Read: Govt to rebuild damaged Karak Hindu temple: KP CM

Chaudhri said India is in no position to pontificate on the issue of minority rights elsewhere as a perennial purveyor of state-sponsored discrimination against its minorities.

“The clear difference between India and Pakistan in respect of minority rights can be gauged from the fact that the accused in the Karak incident were immediately arrested, orders were issued for repair of the temple, the highest level of judiciary took immediate notice, and senior political leadership condemned the incident.”

“Whereas, in India, the blatant acts of discrimination against Muslims and other minorities take place with state complicity. The Indian leadership is yet to condemn the perpetrators of the Delhi massacre in February 2020, let alone bring those criminals to justice.”

Given these incontrovertible facts, the Indian Government would be well advised to set its own house in order rather than feigning concern for minority rights elsewhere.