India swats away Pakistan at Commonwealth: 'Why describe itself? It must vacate (PoK)'

India on Wednesday ridiculed Pakistan for misusing the 20th Commonwealth Foreign Affairs Ministers Meeting (CFAMM) to pursue its "own bigoted and ill-conceived agenda." Vikas Swarup, Secretary (West) said in his statement delivered at the meeting referred to Islamabad as "a globally acknowledged promoter of state-sponsored terrorism masquerading as an alleged victim of the same".

'Why it was describing itself?"

Without directly naming Pakistan, India also referred to the neighbouring country's dubious distinction of becoming synonymous with the phrase "epicentre of terrorism and hosting the largest number of terrorists proscribed by the United Nations."

"When we heard them rant about a South Asian state, we were left wondering why it was describing itself? And not surprisingly it came from a globally acknowledged promoter of state-sponsored terrorism masquerading as an alleged victim of the same. We heard it from a country that brought genocide to South Asia 49 years back when it killed its own people," he said.

The remarks came after Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi alleged that a state in South Asia is fanning hyper-nationalism to"engineer" illegal demographic change in a disputed territory, in a reference to Kashmir. Qureshi said, "While the world remains preoccupied with a pandemic, a state in South Asia is targeting its religious minority groups in order to foment division and hatred amongst community groups."

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'Synonymous with the phrase epicentre of terrorism' 

"This is also the same country that has the dubious distinction of becoming synonymous with the phrase epicentre of terrorism and hosting the largest number of terrorists proscribed by the United Nations," Vikas Swarup said. He was representing External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar at the Commonwealth Foreign Ministers' meeting.

Referring to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, the Indian Diplomat also said that the neighbouring country will have to vacate areas illegally occupied by it sooner or later. "The only dispute left in what it alleged today as a disputed territory is its own illegal occupation of certain parts, which sooner or later, it would have to vacate," he said. Swarup said it was unfortunate that today's Commonwealth Meeting "was misused by one of our South Asian member states to pursue its own bigoted, ill-conceived, narrow, and unilateral agenda on a multilateral platform".

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(With agency inputs)