India slams ‘bizarre’ attack by ‘puppet’ of Pakistan’s military at UN

India exercised its right of reply at the UN General Assembly after Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's remarks, with Indian diplomat Petal Gahlot criticising Pakistan's military influence, terrorism record and statements on Kashmir and religious intolerance.

United Nations: India slammed the “bizarre” attack on India by Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif at the General Assembly, reminding the world of Pakistan’s “horrendous” role in the 9/11 terrorist attack not far from the UN 25 years ago.

Exercising India’s right of reply to Sharif’s vituperations on Friday, Petal Gahlot, a first secretary in India’s UN Mission, reminded him that he was but a henchman for “a regime of the Army, by the Army, and for the Army”.

---

“Their puppets may come and go, but let us have no illusion who calls the shots,” she said.

“They claim to uphold security during the day; they actually carry out terrorism at night,” she said.

The mastermind of the 9/11 attack, Osama Bin Laden, “was living right on the doorstep of Pakistani Army’s premier academy”, she said.

He was caught by a team of US Navy SEALs in Abbottabad, near the Pakistan Military Academy, the premier defence institution.

“And this was the very entity which was the subject of such deep genuflection before us today by the representative of Pakistan,” Gahlot said, referring to Sharif’s repeated homage to Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir during his speech, unusual because he is not an elected official.

In fact, he “elects” the leaders of Pakistan, and reinforcing that, Gahlot said, “All this is only to be expected from what Pakistanis themselves call a ‘Form 47 government'”.

“Form 47” is an election document that was manipulated by the military in the 2024 election to let Sharif into the prime ministership, leading to Pakistanis adopting that as a slogan to ridicule Sharif.

“We heard some hypocritical homilies about democratic rights and human values from a regime whose capital at this very moment is being fortified against its own people,” Gahlot said.

That was because, far from being a democracy, Pakistan is a country under the military’s thumb.

That “reality of Pakistan is expressed in its 27th Amendment” that gave “lifelong immunity granted to its real ruler”, Munir.

Ridiculing Sharif’s statements about religious intolerance in India, Gahlot said, “The views we heard emanate from those with a long record of bigotry and hatred”.

“This Assembly was subjected to remarks about religious intolerance from the very regime whose mainstay is blasphemy laws,” she said.

The so-called blasphemy laws in Pakistan carry the death penalty and are used to intimidate and persecute religious minorities.

“The world knows how minorities are treated in Pakistan; no pious platitude can mislead it,” she said.

The Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, she declared, “is an integral and inalienable part of my country”.

“And will always remain so,” she said.

“But if we must talk about Kashmir, let us turn our attention to the Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir,” she said.

“Ask the people of Rawalakot about the wanton killings, the brutal violence and the denial of basic rights that they have long experienced,” she said.

According to human rights groups, over 90 people have been killed in recent months in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, where the government has been brutally putting down a popular movement against importing people from elsewhere to take over the area and against election manipulation.

She took on the preposterous claims by Sharif about India’s Operation Sindoor, carried out to avenge the religiously motivated killing of 26 Indians by Pakistan-based terrorists of The Resistance Front, a proxy for the Lashkar-e-Taiba, and break their bases.

“We demonstrated last year that terrorists will have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide,” Gahlot said.

“Our right to defend ourselves against terrorism will be exercised,” she warned.

“Continued terrorism by Pakistan will have consequences,” she said. “It will understandably call into question what were premised on friendship and goodwill.”

Turning to the leaders gathered for the high-level week of the General Assembly, Gahlot said, “We are confident that this Assembly will recognise Pakistan and its policies for what they really are; not what its representative mendaciously projects them to be”.

Calling out what has become a regular ritual for Islamabad, she said, “Reiterating falsehoods year after year does not make them true”.

“Pakistan’s terrorism, deceit and duplicity will neither benefit it nor the world,” she advised its rulers.