'Deplorable': India slams UN for raising issues of Kashmir and status of minorities

New Delhi, Feb 19: In a strong response, India slammed UN human rights experts for raising the issues of Kashmir and the status of minorities and said it was “deplorable”. This statement from the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, Anurag Srivastava, came soon after the experts connected the Indian policy on Kashmir with the status of religious minorities in India and said they could face discrimination in “employment and land ownership”.

 

 

Fernand de Varennes, special rapporteur on minority issues, and Ahmed Shaheed, special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, had said in a statement issued in Geneva that the changes in Jammu and Kashmir could curtail political participation of Muslims and other minorities and lead to potential discrimination in employment and land ownership.

 

Giving a response to this, Srivastava, said,“It is deplorable that the SRs after sharing their questionnaire on February 10 did not even wait for our response. Instead, they chose to release their inaccurate assumptions to the media". He also questioned the timing of the remarks by the UN experts, saying they were “deliberately timed” to coincide with the visit by 24 envoys to Jammu and Kashmir. "The press release has also been deliberately timed to coincide with the visit of a group of Ambassadors to Jammu and Kashmir," he said.

 

De Varennes and Shaheed had said in their statement, “The loss of autonomy and the imposition of direct rule by the government in New Delhi suggests the people of Jammu and Kashmir no longer have their own government and have lost power to legislate or amend laws in the region to ensure the protection of their rights as minorities.”

 

In response, Srivastava said, the press release from the U.N. experts “disregards the fact that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral and inalienable part of India” and that the decision to alter the status of Article 370 was taken on August 5, 2019 by the Parliament of India.