Pakistan pushes back at India’s terrorism allegations at UN General Assembly | The Express Tribune

Pakistan on Friday hit back after an Indian delegate branded the country as being a sponsor and promoter of terrorism at the UN General Assembly, asserting that New Delhi had “elevated propaganda into statecraft”.

“It (India) exports terrorism and violence while trying to import victimhood and sympathy,” Saima Saleem, a counsellor at the Pakistan Mission to the United Nations, said while exercising her right of reply in the UN General Assembly.

Saima was reacting to a statement made by India’s delegate, Petal Gahlot, in response to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s speech earlier in the day in which he made a reference to the 2025 military conflict with India, saying Pakistan’s “brave and valiant armed forces” repulsed the “aggression” with “precision and professionalism”.

In her response, the Indian delegate accused Pakistan of upholding security during the day, while actually carrying out terrorism at night.

Rebutting the Indian allegations about terrorism, Saima said that India was aiding and abetting terrorist groups targeting Pakistanis, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Balochistan Liberation Army and its Majeed Brigade. “Yet, despite its endless lectures to others on terrorism, we are still waiting to hear India unequivocally condemn the terrorist attacks that kill innocent Pakistani civilians,” the Pakistani diplomat said.

“Since the turn of the century, Pakistan has lost nearly 100,000 lives to terrorism; generations scarred, and billions of dollars drained from our economy.”

As for India, Saima said its terrorist exports had gone from regional to global, citing Indian involvement in acts of terrorism in Canada and the United States.

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While responding to PM Shehbaz’s reference to the Kashmiris’ plight under India’s occupation and Pakistan’s support for their right to self-determination, the Indian delegate pointedly referred to the recent developments in Azad Kashmir.

Saima took issue with her Indian counterpart, saying, “The contrast between Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Indian illegaly occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) could not be more stark. In AJK, Kashmiris enjoy rights, participate in political life, and have the freedom to express their opinions; while the people of Indian Occupied Kashmir endure decades of occupation, repression and denial of their fundamental rights and freedoms, including the inalienable right to self-determination.”

She added, ”Rights exercised cannot be equated with rights denied.”

By holding in abeyance the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, the Pakistani diplomat said India had “stooped to a new low” of weaponising water, a lifeline for the 240 million people of Pakistan.

India’s “false narratives and disinformation” could not hide the crushing defeat it suffered at Pakistan’s hands during Marka-e-Haq in May 2025, she said. “It is well recognised by the international community that India lost more than a military conflict; it lost its credibility.”

The ruling RSS-BJP dispensation in India, Saima said, had institutionalised Hindutva ideology in state policy and practice, and unleashed a reign of terror against minorities — Muslims, Christians, Dalits and Sikhs

As regards the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir, the Pakistani diplomat said that Jammu and Kashmir never was nor would ever be an integral part of India. “It is an internationally recognised disputed territory, a huge part of which is under India’s forcible and illegal occupation for nearly eight decades against the wishes of the Kashmiri people, and in gross violation of international law and numerous resolutions of the Security Council.”