IndiaToday.in | Edited by Dev Goswami
New Delhi, October 4, 2017 | UPDATED 09:09 IST
During a routine General Assembly debate on the work of the United Nations, Pakistan deviated from the discussion to rake up Kashmir and say that India had falsely claimed the 2016 surgical strikes.
Indian diplomat Eenam Gambhir (L) and Pakistani representative to UN Maleeha Lodhi (R)India has "falsely" claimed that it carried out surgical strikes last year across the Line of Control (LoC), Pakistan told the United Nations last night.
India dismissed the statement as a "distraction" and literally said that Pakistan was wasting the United Nation's time.
Pakistan's statement was made on its behalf by its permanent representative to the UN, Maleeha Lodhi. This was the same Maleeha Lodhi who last month attracted headlines in India after attempting to pass off a photo of a Palestinian injured in air strikes in Gaza as a victim of alleged state excesses in Jammu and Kashmir.
Addressing a General Assembly debate on the annual report of the UN's work, Lodhi deviated from what was being discussed to target India.
"India claims, falsely, to have conducted a so-called 'surgical strike' across the Line of Control. This claim, and India's repeated threats to conduct such 'strikes' across the LOC, constitute flagrant violations of the UN Charter's injunction against the use or threat of use of force," Lodhi was quoted as saying by the Pakistani news outlet Geo News.
Lodhi went on to warn India against any form of "aggression".
"Any aggression or intervention will meet a matching and effective response from our armed forces and the people of Pakistan," Lodhi was quoted as saying in the Geo News report. "All I can say to them is: do not underestimate Pakistan's resolve and capacity to defend itself."
According to a dispatch by news agency IANS, Lodhi also harped on Pakistan's usual fall-back issue, Kashmir, asserting that India was carrying out daily ceasefire violations along the LoC to divert attention from "its crimes against the Kashmiri people."
'DON'T WISH TO WASTE TIME'
In response to Maleeha Lodhi's statements, India, once again, fielded Eenam Gambhir, the same diplomat who last month countered the Pakistan's prime minister at the UNGA and termed Pakistan 'terroristan' .
"My delegation does not wish to waste the precious time of this august assembly in further engaging with such distractions," Gambhir, First Secretary in India's UN Mission, said in a short 45-second rejoinder even though she was entitled to 10 minutes to exercise her right of reply.
"Even while we have heard speakers address concerns of the present and the future, you have heard a lonely voice from the wilderness articulate a narrative of the past," Gambhir said. "It (Pakistan) is focused on a topic that is not even been deliberated for decades at the UN, an issue which that delegation tries to keep alive by procedural stratagems even while the world has moved on."
"Yesterday's people reflecting antiquated mindsets of the bygone times are symbolic of what holds us all back," she added.