United Nations (Staff Report): Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN Maleeha Lodhi condemned India on Tuesday for the aggressive use of pellet guns against peaceful protestors in occupied Kashmir, calling the act as "first mass blinding in human history."
Maleeha Lodhi was addressing the General Assembly's Special Political and Decolonization (Fourth) Committee, where she said that India is committing ‘war crimes’ which have left the young generation sightless and maimed for life.
According to an official press release, the Pakistani ambassador to the UN said, “This has been aptly described as the first mass blinding in human history.”
“The decolonisation agenda of the UN will remain unfulfilled without peaceful resolution of one of the longest disputes of all time.”
Lodhi stated, “This represents the most persistent failure of the United Nations.”
Moreover, she mentioned that since 70 years India has been preventing the Kashmiris from excercising their fundamental and inalienable right to self-determination through ‘force and fraud’.
The press release revealed, she expressed that the deployment of tens of thousands of Indian troops in the occupied territory is primarily aimed at suppressing the legitimate freedom of the people.
She added, “India uses all methods from barbaric violence and extreme cruelty to fraudulent elections to deprive the Kashmiris of their right to self-determination and perpetuate its unlawful occupation.”
The Pakistani envoy said, the people of Jammu and Kashmir will continue to wage the struggle for their right to self-determination with courage and conviction.
She stated that the yearning and aspiration of the Kashmiri people for freedom from the occupation remain unbeaten.
Ambassador Lodhi asked the UN to fulfill its promise of holding a UN-supervised plebiscite in order ‘to enable Kashmiris to determine their political destiny’.
Lodhi while highlighting the plight of the Palestinians, said that Pakistan will continue its support for the just struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom.
While denouncing the illegal policy of settlement construction, she said that a strong and viable state of Palestine was the only guarantor of peace in the region, she said.
She said that the continued existence of colonialism in any form was contrary to the UN Charter and to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In her concluding remarks Maleeha Lodhi said, “The UN has a moral responsibility in this regard and we must all work toward eliminating the remaining vestiges of colonialism.”