Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: India staged a walkout from the General Assembly on September 27 as Pakistan sprayed venom against India while making the admission it is “Terroristan”. Pakistan also acknowledged that it was the “epicentre of global terrorism”. In a call to the General Assembly for action against terrorism, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said, “India has confronted this challenge since independence, having a neighbour that is an epicentre of global terrorism”.
He did not name Pakistan, laying a trap for it and it walked right in. A second secretary in its UN Mission, Muhammad Rashid, exercised the right of reply to Jaishankar’s address and said it was “an attempt to malign Pakistan”. India came right back on to enmesh him in his own rhetoric. “It is telling that a neighbour who was not named chose to nevertheless respond and admit their long-standing practice of cross border terrorism”, Rentala Srinivas, a second secretary in India’s UN Mission, said.
“Pakistan’s reputation speaks for itself”, he said taking the opening. “Its fingerprints are so visible in terrorism across so many geographies, it’s a menace, not only to its neighbours but to the entire world”. “No arguments or untruths can ever whitewash the crimes of Terroristan”, he added without naming Pakistan. But Rashid came back, furiously admitting that Pakistan was Terroristan. “Stan” is a generic, Perisan-derived word for “place of” or “home of” and is found in the names of several countries and places. Protesting the use of the word Terroristan, Rashid said India was distorting “the very name of a country, a member of the United Nation”. India walked out of the Assembly Hall as he spoke.
