India sharply rebukes Pakistan at United Nations over Jammu & Kashmir, urges Islamabad to vacate occupied territories

India delivered a forceful rebuttal to Pakistan’s statements on Jammu & Kashmir at the 55th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Thursday, with India’s First Secretary at the UN, Anupama Singh, dismissing Pakistan’s narrative as detached from reality and urging Islamabad to vacate areas under its control.

Singh exercised India’s right of reply during the high-level segment after Pakistan and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) raised allegations regarding the situation in Jammu & Kashmir, which India said were unfounded and driven by what it described as “propaganda.”

Responding to the accusations, Singh said India “categorically rejects these allegations,” asserting that Pakistan’s narrative “reeks of envy” and that New Delhi had no intention of dignifying what it called misleading claims.

In a pointed remark that drew attention at the Council, Singh quipped that if Pakistan dismissed infrastructure and development achievements in Jammu & Kashmir — such as the Chenab Rail Bridge, described as the world’s highest railway bridge — as fake, then Islamabad must be “living in La-La Land.”

Singh reiterated India’s position that “Jammu and Kashmir was, is, and will always remain an integral and inalienable part of India,” and stressed that its accession to India after independence in 1947 was “completely legal and irrevocable” under the Indian Independence Act and international law.

Singh went on to state that the only outstanding issue between the two countries regarding the region is the “illegal occupation” of Indian territory by Pakistan, and called upon Islamabad to vacate the areas under its forcible occupation.

She pointed to the record voter turnout in recent elections in Jammu & Kashmir as evidence that the people of the region have rejected what India termed “the ideology of terrorism and violence propagated by Pakistan” and are choosing a path of development and democracy.

To underscore its argument, Singh contrasted India’s development agenda in Jammu & Kashmir with Pakistan’s economic challenges.

She noted that the developmental budget for Jammu & Kashmir was more than double the size of the recent bailout package Pakistan sought from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), suggesting that dismissing such achievements as unreal indicated a disconnect from ground realities.

Singh also criticized Pakistan’s record on democratic governance, saying it was “hard to take lectures on democracy” from a nation where elected civilian governments “rarely complete their terms.”

India’s response at the UNHRC highlights continued diplomatic tension between New Delhi and Islamabad over Jammu & Kashmir, with both sides seeking to shape international opinion on the region.