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India tells UN that Pakistan refused its own soldiers' bodies in Kargil
Responding at a UN dialogue on funeral rights, an Indian diplomat said a state that would not accept its war dead had no standing to lecture India on Jammu and Kashmir.
Key points
- First Secretary Bhavika Mangalanandan spoke at a dialogue with the UN rapporteur on freedom of religion.
- She said the Indian Army buried Pakistani soldiers with Islamic rites after Pakistan disowned them in 1999.
- The rapporteur's report had cited denial of bodies and secret burials in Jammu and Kashmir.
India has accused Pakistan of hypocrisy at the United Nations, reminding a debate on funeral rights that Pakistan refused to take back the bodies of its own soldiers killed in the 1999 Kargil war.
Bhavika Mangalanandan, First Secretary at India’s Permanent Mission to the UN, spoke on Thursday at an interactive dialogue with Nazila Ghanea, the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, on funeral rights in exceptional circumstances.
“It is deeply ironic that a State that did not even accept the bodies of its own soldiers” should raise the issue, she said. Pakistan had declined to acknowledge that its army personnel were fighting in Kargil, she said, and the Indian Army recovered and buried the dead Pakistani soldiers, including with Islamic rites.
What the report said
Ghanea’s interim report had referred to “reports of systemic denial of funeral rights in the context of individuals killed in security operations”. It cited the refusal to return bodies to families and remote, secret burials in Jammu and Kashmir, which it said fell disproportionately on Muslims.
Mangalanandan accused Pakistan of an obsession with Jammu and Kashmir and said it should look instead at the areas it controls, naming Rawalakot. “A State that cannot ensure the safety of its own minorities has no standing to lecture India,” she said, citing the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s latest annual report on minority rights.
She also argued that the rapporteur’s report did not deal adequately with recent violations elsewhere in the region or in developed countries.
Pakistan’s response, if any, was not available.