In a strong response to Pakistan, India has said in the UN General Assembly that a country that claims to seek peace with its neighbours would never sponsor cross-border terrorism nor would it shelter planners of the horrific Mumbai terrorist attack, disclosing their existence only under pressure from the global community.

India exercised the Right of Reply in the UN General Assembly on Friday to respond sharply to Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who had raked up the issue of Jammu and Kashmir during his address to the high-level General Debate earlier in the day.

“It is regrettable that the Prime Minister of Pakistan has chosen the platform of this august assembly to make false accusations against India,” First Secretary in the Permanent Mission of India to the UN Mijito Vinito said in the Right of Reply.

“He has done so to obfuscate misdeeds in his own country and to justify actions against India that the world considers unacceptable,” the young Indian diplomat said.

In his address, Sharif reiterated that Pakistan wants to have peace with India but added that long-lasting, enduring peace can only be “insured and guaranteed” through a just and fair solution to the issue of Kashmir under the UN Charter and Security Council resolutions.

India responded that a “polity that claims it seeks peace with its neighbours would never sponsor cross-border terrorism, nor would it shelter planners of the horrific Mumbai terrorist attack, disclosing their existence only under pressure from the international community.”

Vinito said such a country would not make unjustified and untenable territorial claims against neighbours, it would not covet their lands and seek to illegally integrate them with its own.

“But it is not just about the neighbourhood that we have heard false claims today. It is about human rights, about minority rights and about basic decencies,” he said.

“When young women in the thousands from the minority community are abducted as an SoP (Standard Operating Procedure) what can we conclude about the underlying mindset?

India asserted that the desire for peace, security and progress in the Indian subcontinent is real. It is also widely shared and it can be realised.

“That will surely happen when cross-border terrorism ceases, when governments come clean with the international community and with their own people. When minorities are not persecuted and not least, when we recognise these realities before this Assembly.”

Pakistan then exercised its Right of Reply in response to the comments by India.