New Delhi:
India and Pakistan are set to face off on the issue of Kashmir at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva on Tuesday. As per sources, Pakistan will submit a 115-page dossier on Kashmir at the UNHRC. The Indian delegation is expected to make make its statement some hours later and will have the “right of reply”.
Earlier, Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi left for Switzerland on Monday to represent his country at the 42nd session of the UNHRC. He tweeted that Pakistan will “speak definitively” at the session on alleged “atrocities in Kashmir”. Qureshi will make a country statement at noon Geneva time.
Pakistan may call for urgent debate on Kashmir or move a resolution citing alleged human rights violations in Kashmir. Either of these will need to be put to a simple majority vote with absentees or abstentions not being counted.
The Indian side will be led by a secretary from the external affairs ministry and will include Ajay Bisaria, till recently the high commissioner in Islamabad.
Team India at UNHRC is making full efforts to reduce abstentions during procedural vote on any such Pakistan sponsored debate. India wants to avoid a situation where member-countries abstain en masse during the vote on Kashmir. India has broader support than Pakistan but that needs to be translated into votes, an official said.
While foreign minister S Jaishankar has personally contacted or visited each and every member of the 47-member UNHRC, national security adviser Ajit Doval has managed the internal situation in Kashmir. India will stress the fact that not a single life has been lost in Jammu and Kashmir at the hands of Indian security forces.
India may hits back at Pakistan by raising the issue of ill-treatment of minorities in Pakistan. Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal had urged Jaishankar to take up the issue of targeting of minorities in Pakistan.
India had earlier thwarted a joint China-Pakistan initiative to rake up Kashmir at the United Nation Security Council. Ever since India's decision to remove the special status for Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan has been trying to raise Kashmir issue at international forums. However, it has not got any success so far.
