In a powerful rebuttal at the United Nations Security Council, India tore into Pakistan for its repeated attempts to internationalise the Kashmir issue, reminding the world of Islamabad’s horrific record during Bangladesh’s 1971 liberation struggle.
Responding to Pakistan’s remarks at a UNSC debate on Women, Peace and Security, India’s Permanent Representative, P. Harish, said, “This is a country that conducted Operation Searchlight in 1971 and sanctioned a systematic campaign of genocidal mass rape of 400,000 women citizens by its own army.” He asserted, “The world sees through Pakistan’s propaganda.”
Harish’s remarks came after Pakistan’s envoy Asim Iftikhar Ahmad once again dragged Kashmir into an unrelated UN debate. “A country that bombs its own people, conducts systematic genocide, can only attempt to distract the world with misdirection and hyperbole,” Harish said, calling Islamabad’s statements a “delusional tirade.”
India’s strong reminder coincided with renewed tensions between Islamabad and Dhaka, as Bangladesh under Prime Minister Mohammad Yunus firmly rejected Pakistan’s attempts to “rewrite history.”
Harish underlined that Pakistan’s obsession with Kashmir has become an international embarrassment. “They covet Indian territory while their own occupied region burns,” he said, referring to the recent killing of at least 12 people in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir during a brutal crackdown on protesters.
The debate also marked the 25th anniversary of the UN’s landmark resolution on women’s participation in peace and security. UN Secretary-General António Guterres noted that while women have made great strides — leading mediations, shaping laws, and advancing justice — “gains are fragile and worryingly in reverse.”
Highlighting India’s global leadership in gender inclusion within peacekeeping, Harish recalled how Indian women have broken new ground for decades. “Indian medical officers were among the first women in UN peacekeeping, serving in Congo in 1960,” he said.
He also praised India’s trailblazing 2007 deployment of the first-ever all-female Formed Police Unit in Liberia, which inspired local women to join law enforcement. “It is no longer a question of whether women can do peacekeeping; rather, whether peacekeeping can do without women,” Harish declared.
India, he added, continues to train and empower women officers globally through the Indian Army’s Centre for United Nations Peacekeeping in New Delhi, which launched a special course for women military officers in 2016.
The fiery exchange at the UN reaffirmed India’s stance that Pakistan’s credibility remains deeply tainted by its past atrocities and ongoing repression — a past, India says, “the world will neither forget nor forgive.”
