In its evident desperation to respond to India's scathing charges of Islamabad's terror policy, Pakistan yet again managed to embarrass itself at the UN as it displayed a faulty photo of a “Kashmiri woman”. Pak's permanent representative to the UN, Maleeha Lodhi proudly flashed a picture of a pellet gun victim, she called to be a local Kashmiri. “This is the face of Indian democracy,” she said.
Lodhi was, however, to be left red-faced as the woman in the photo was later identified as a 17 year old Palestinian girl, Rawya Abu Joma, who was injured in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, in 2014. The picture was taken by Jerusalem-based American freelance photojournalist Heidi Levine, at Shifa Hospital in Gaza. Rawya was reportedly injured in an airstrike on her apartment, an attack that claimed the lives of her sister and three cousins. Lodhi dramatically waved the photo in the UN, attacking India's External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj who recently slammed Pak for producing jihadis. She called India the “Mother of Terrorism” in South Asia, unknown to the factual truth behind her “evidence”. Lodhi even quoted celebrity Indian author Arundhati Roy, saying, “Much of what is in the air in India now is pure terror, in Kashmir, in other places.”
It is widely known that India has never used heavy military against its citizens in Jammu & Kashmir, or elsewhere. However, given Pakistan's abhorrence towards the country, it is expected of them to make false arguments as they have in the past. Not one to leave a juicy opportunity to castigate Pak when necessary, India came up with a stunning rebuttal on Monday, as a young Indian diplomat accused the neighbour of using fakes to embellish its false narrative on Kashmir and waving the photo of a slain Kashmiri Indian Army officer to drive home India's point on cross-border terrorism perpetrated by Pakistan.
First secretary with India's permanent mission to the UN, Paulomi Tripathi held up two photographs and declared “True face of Pakistan is not hidden from anyone.” One picture was of the Army officer, Lieutenant Umar Faiyaz, who was abducted and killed by terrorists in J&K's Shopian district, and the other was of Rawya. Tripathi, the junior-most Indian diplomat at India's permanent mission to the UN in New York, schooled Lodhi, Pak's most experienced diplomat in a deliberate and crisp answer.
Tripathi said India had been constrained to show the Assembly a photograph that reflected the real picture of pain inflicted by the nefarious designs of Pakistan on India. “This is a real and not a fake picture of Lt Umar Faiyaz. A young officer from the Indian State of Jammu & Kashmir. Umar Faiyaz was kidnapped at a wedding celebration. He was brutally tortured and killed by Pakistan supported terrorists in May 2017. This is a true picture. It portrays a harsh and tragic reality. A picture of terrorism emanating from across our borders that the people of India, especially in the state of Jammu and Kashmir have to struggle with, every day. This is the reality which the Permanent Representative of Pakistan sought to obfuscate,” she said holding up his photo.
She accused Lodhi of yet again seeking to divert attention from Pakistan's role as the hub of global terrorism. “She did so by callously holding up a picture of an injured girl,” she said. “The Permanent Representative of Pakistan misled this Assembly by displaying this picture to spread falsehoods about India. A fake picture to push a completely false narrative.”
In a thorough back and forth of accusations and verbal attacks, Lodhi's attack came after Sushma Swaraj responded to Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi's charge of “atrocities” in Jammu and Kashmir. Speaking at the UN General Assembly, Swaraj said if Pakistan used its resources to stamp out terrorists in its territory, the world would be rid of terrorism. “Whereas we produce IITs and IIMs, you (Pak) have produced LeT and Jaish-e-Muhammed. We have produced doctors and scientists, you have churned out terrorists and jihadis. While a doctor saves lives, jihadis kill,” she said. She said while the neighbour continues to plumb new depths of barbarism, it has the gumption to preach humanity to India. Her address came a day after India called Pakistan “Terroristan” in response to Abbasi's claims.
She took a dig at the international community too for first failing to recognise terrorism as a global threat and dismissing it as a “law and order” problem and also for continuing to quibble over the definition of terrorism. The minister also exhorted China to drop its opposition to Pakistan-based JeM chief Masood Azhar being designated as a global terrorist.
