Pakistan rejects Indian allegations regarding damage to Buddhist cultural heritage in GB

Pakistan has completely rejected baseless Indian claims regarding Buddhist cultural heritage sites

ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) - Pakistan has completely rejected the baseless Indian contentions regarding Buddhist cultural heritage in Gilgit Baltistan. The Indian allegations are contrary to the historical facts, international law and relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions.

According to the Foreign Office spokesperson Aisha Farooqui, Jammu and Kashmir is a disputed territory recognized as such by the international community. The Dispute is the longest outstanding item on the agenda of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) which remains unresolved due to forcible, brutal and illegal occupation of a part of Jammu and Kashmir by India since 1947. The regurgitation of false and preposterous Indian claims does not change the disputed status of Jammu and Kashmir.

She said that the Indian government’s contentions concerning the Buddhist cultural heritage in Gilgit-Baltistan are preposterous. These are part of Indian leadership’s unrelenting anti-Pakistan propaganda. With its tarnished human rights record in Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJ&K) and abdication of responsibility to protect its minorities from Hindu extremists, the RSS-BJP government has no credentials whatsoever even to feign concern for minorities, either at home or elsewhere.

The statement said that India’s state terrorism and extra judicial killings in fake encounters in IOJ&K, vandalism and destruction of minorities’ places of worship including the historic Babri Mosque, lynching by cow vigilantes under government’s watch, Gujarat massacre of 2002 and targeted killings of Muslims in Delhi in February 2020, and rendering millions of people stateless with discriminatory steps such as NRC are well documented by international human rights and humanitarian organisations. Rather than pretending concerns for minorities beyond its borders, it is time for Indian leadership to do serious introspection and take requisite steps to safeguard and protect the lives, rights and places of workshop of minorities in India.

She said that India must realize that its baseless contentions about Gilgit-Baltistan cannot divert international attention away from the Jammu &Kashmir dispute and the need for its immediate resolution in accordance with the relevant UNSC Resolutions and aspirations of Kashmiri people.

The spokesperson added that till the implementation of UNSC Resolutions through a free and impartial plebiscite under the UN auspices, no illegal and unilateral action or repetition of false claims by India can alter the disputed status of Jammu and Kashmir.