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India, Pakistan hurl serious accusations against each other at UN

Pakistan's Foreign Minister Bhutto Zardari says his country has lost far more lives to terrorism and that he himself was a victim after India accused its neighbour of "harbouring militants."

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Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari says India seeks to conflate Muslims and terrorists in both countries.

India's foreign minister has accused Pakistan of being the "epicentre of terrorism", while his counterpart hit back that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the "Butcher of Gujarat" in a war of words at the United Nations.

The latest exchange of taunts happened on the sidelines of an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council in New York across Wednesday and Thursday.

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar told Pakistan to "clean up your act and try to be (a) good neighbour", calling Pakistan the "epicentre of terrorism".

"Hillary Clinton, during her visit to Pakistan, said that if you keep snakes in your backyard, you can't expect them to bite only your neighbours. Eventually, they will bite the people who keep them in the backyard."

In response, Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said India sought to conflate Muslims and terrorists in both countries.

He told Jaishankar that "Osama bin Laden is dead, (but) the Butcher of Gujarat lives, and he is the prime minister of India".

Bhutto Zardari said his country had lost far more lives to terrorism and that he himself was a victim, referring to his mother Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated by a suicide bomber in 2007.

"Why would we want our own people to suffer? We absolutely do not."

Turning a blind eye to the violence

The nuclear-armed rivals have strained political ties, especially over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which was split between the two during Partition in 1947.

India's Hindu nationalist leader Modi was chief minister of the state of Gujarat when riots in 2002 left more than 1,000 people dead. He was accused of starting the communal violence that spread through the state, specifically targeting the minority Muslim community.

Pakistan accuses India of Lahore blast

Pakistan this week accused India of backing militants responsible for the 2021 bombing which killed four people in Lahore near the house of Hafiz Saeed.

Hafiz Saeed is accused by India and the United States of being involved in the Mumbai attacks, which killed 166 people, including foreigners.

Islamabad said it would share evidence of the allegation, along with other accusations of sabotage, with the United Nations without offering further details.

SOURCE: TRTWorld and agencies