The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan also sharply criticised the Pakistani air force for carrying out strikes on its own people.
India responded to Pakistani provocations at the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday by reminding its neighbour that it bombs it own citizens and exports terror to cause instability globally.
“A delegation that epitomises the antithesis of this approach continues to abuse this forum with baseless and provocative statements against India,” Indian representative at the UNHRC, diplomat Kshitij Tyagi, said, in a video that is now going viral.
“Instead of coveting our territory, they would do well to vacate the Indian territory under their illegal occupation and focus on rescuing an economy on life support, a polity muzzled by military dominance, and a human rights record stained by persecution (and) perhaps once they find time away from exporting terrorism, harbouring UN-proscribed terrorists, and bombing their own people,” Tyagi said, referring to the reports of a Pakistani Air Force strike in Matre Dara village, Tirah Valley, in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that led to a large number of civilian casualties.
Tyagi’s remarks came when he was speaking during Agenda Item 4 of the UNHRC session. He was referring to the airstrike that was conducted in the wee hours of Monday morning where Pakistani fighter jets JF-17 dropped eight LS-6 bombs on the Matre Dara village.
A report by DD News said that 30 people, including women and children, were killed in that attack. It also said that disturbing images of civilian bodies strewn about were seen in the aftermath of the strikes.
The roots of insurgency in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) go back to the early 2000s, when Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters fleeing the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 sought refuge across the Durand Line.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, groups like the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), formed in 2007 under Baitullah Mehsud, turned the tribal belt into a hub of militancy, targeting Pakistani security forces and civilians alike. The Pakistani Army launched large-scale operations such as Operation Zarb-e-Azb in 2014 and Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad in 2017, claiming major successes.
