This sharp statement came after Pakistan, at the multilateral platform, accused India of fomenting division and hatred among religious communities.
India Wednesday slammed Pakistan for using the Commonwealth Foreign Affairs Ministers’ meeting to pursue its “bigoted, ill-conceived, narrow and unilateral agenda”. This sharp statement came after Pakistan, at the multilateral platform, accused India of fomenting division and hatred among religious communities.
Both countries did not name each other in their statements.
According to reports, Pakistan Foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said at the meeting: “While the world remains preoccupied with pandemic, a state in south Asia is targeting its religious minorities groups in order to foment division and hatred amongst community groups. It has transgressed rights and freedoms of millions and fanned hyper nationalism to engineer illegal demographic change in a disputed territory and sowed racial tensions. We ignore its transgressions only at our own peril.”
Vikas Swarup, Secretary (West) at the Ministry of External Affairs, said: “It was unfortunate that today’s Commonwealth Meeting was misused by one of our south Asian member state to pursue its own bigoted, ill-conceived, narrow and unilateral agenda on a multilateral platform.”
Swarup participated in the meet on behalf of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. “When we heard them rant about a south Asian state, we were left wondering why it was describing itself?”
