India calls Pak a land of 'pure terror' in UN after Abbasi's speech

In a stinging response to Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who accused India of indulging in terror activities against his country during his maiden address to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, India described his country as 'Terroristan' — a land of 'pure terror' that hosts a flourishing industry to produce and export global terrorism.

Ahead of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj's address to the UN General Assembly, scheduled on Saturday, both countries upped the ante at the UN headquarters as well as at the Line of Control (LoC) and at their respective capitals, by summoning diplomats.

In his address, Abbasi used the word 'Kashmir' 17 times, and 'India' 14 times. While accusing India of terror activities, he warned of a "matching response", if India "ventures across the LoC or acts upon its doctrine of limited war against Pakistan". He also asked the UN to appoint a special envoy for Kashmir.

Exercising its right to reply, India fielded its first secretary in the Permanent Mission of India, Eenam Gambhir, who, in a non-holds-barred speech, ripped Pakistan apart, saying that it was extraordinary that the state that protected Osama Bin Laden and sheltered Mullah Omar should have the gumption to play the victim.

On Pakistan raking up the issue of Kashmir, she said the state is and will remain an integral part of India. "However much it scales up cross-border terrorism, it will never succeed in undermining India's territorial integrity," she said. "By now, all of Pakistan's neighbours are painfully familiar with these tactics to create a narrative based on distortion, deception, and deceit. In its short history, Pakistan has become a geography synonymous with terror," Gambhir added.

This is not the first time that India has chosen its junior-most diplomat, Gambhir, from its permanent mission to the UN to deliver its response to a Pakistan PM. Exactly a year ago, at the same venue, Gambhir, a Mathematics graduate from Delhi University's Hindu College and 2005 IFS batch officer, took on the then Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif. Her labelling Pakistan as the "Ivy League of Terrorism" had put the social media on fire.

On Abbasi's claim that 27,000 Pakistanis have been killed by extremists since the launch of the US war on terror and the call for a priority on eliminating extremists, including from the militant Islamic State (IS) group and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Gambhir responded that Pakistan was legitimising leaders such as Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, a leader of the UN-designated terror organisation Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT).

She said Pakistan's counter-terrorism policy was to bring terrorists to the mainstream, either by providing safe havens to terror leaders in its military towns, or by protecting them with "political careers".

On the Pakistan PM's assertion that his country had fought the war against terror using its own resources, with its economic losses pegged at over $120 billion, she said the country has diverted billions of dollars in international military and development aid towards creating a "dangerous infrastructure of terror" on its own territory.

Gambhir further charged that Pakistan was now speaking of the high cost of its terror industry. "The polluter, in this case, is paying the price. Even as terrorists thrive in Pakistan, we have heard the country lecture about the protection of human rights in India. The world does not need lessons on democracy and human rights from a country whose own situation is charitably described as a failed state," she said.

"Terroristan is, in fact, a territory whose contribution to the globalisation of terror is unparalleled. Pakistan can only be counselled to abandon a destructive worldview that has caused grief to the entire world. If it could be persuaded to demonstrate any commitment to the civilisation, order, and to peace, it may still find some acceptance in the comity of nations," she said.

Earlier, the Pakistan PM called for expeditious resolution of the Kashmir issue. "To this end, the UN Secretary General should appoint a special envoy on Kashmir. His mandate should flow from the longstanding but unimplemented resolutions of the Security Council," Abbasi said. Despite over 600 ceasefire violations on the India-Pakistan border since January, he claimed that Pakistan has acted with restraint.

"Shotgun pellets have blinded and maimed thousands of Kashmiris, including children. These and other brutalities clearly constitute war crimes and violate the Geneva Convention," he charged. Abbasi then added that Pakistan remained open to resuming a comprehensive dialogue with India to address all outstanding issues, especially Kashmir, and discuss measures to maintain peace and security in the region. This dialogue, Abbasi said, "must be accompanied by an end to India's campaign of subversion and state-sponsored terrorism against Pakistan".