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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Saturday rejected India’s statement in response to an attack on a Hindu temple in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, describing New Delhi as “the most egregious and persistent violator of minority rights” that frequently expressed concern over such incidents in other parts of the world.
According to The Hindu, a local Indian newspaper, New Delhi issued a written demarche to the Pakistan High Commission after a mob in Karak district vandalized the temple on Wednesday which was being renovated and expanded by members of the local Hindu community.
India's Ministry of External Affairs said it expected Pakistan to investigate the incident and provide details of its findings to the administration in New Delhi.
Pakistani authorities have already arrested about 30 people involved in the incident, including the cleric who allegedly instigated violence.
The chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa also announced on Friday that his administration would help reconstruct the facility which was partially demolished before being set on fire.
Reacting to New Delhi’s “serious concern” over the incident, Pakistan’s foreign office listed down India’s own violations of minority rights.
“From discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) to National Register of Citizens (NRC); from the Gujarat massacre of 2002 to the Delhi pogrom of 2020; from the reprehensible demolition of Babri Mosque in 1992 to the despicable acquittal of all the accused by Indian court in 2020; from blaming Muslims for spreading Coronavirus to banning of inter-faith marriages; from cow vigilantism and mob lynchings to terming the Muslims of West Bengal ‘termites’ and threatening to ‘throw them into the Bay of Bengal’; from extra-judicial killings of innocent Kashmiris to blatant attempts to turn Muslims into a minority in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IIOJK) through distribution of ‘fake domicile certificate’, the RSS-BJP regime’s record is replete with instances of gross and systemic violations of the rights of minorities, in particular Muslims,” it said in an official statement.
“As a perennial purveyor of state-sponsored discrimination against its minorities,” it added, “India is in no position to pontificate on the issue of minority rights elsewhere.”
The foreign office also noted that the perpetrators of the crime in Karak had been immediately arrested, and the Pakistani state had never been complicit in such incidents.