Pakistan hits back at India over Citizenship Amendment Bill

Pakistan hit back at Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesperson's comments on Prime Minister Imran Khan's tweet about the discriminatory citizenship bill and asserted that world community should take notice of the violation of minorities' rights in India.

"We reject comments by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs's (MEA) spokesperson about a tweet of the Prime Minister of Pakistan regarding discriminatory citizenship bill passed by the Indian Parliament this week," Foreign Office Spokesperson Dr Mohammad Faisal said.

He pointed out that many international human rights organizations and neutral observers even from within India have characterized the legislation as discriminatory against Muslims and unconstitutional.

"We reiterate that this Indian legislation is premised on a falsehood, both with regard to the alleged decline in non-Muslim population in Pakistan as well as their alleged persecution in the country," he said.

Furthermore, objectively speaking, India should be the last country to pretend being a "protector" of the minorities, Dr Faisal said, adding that the world's media have widely reported on and condemned the deplorable conditions of the minorities in India, especially since the assumption of office of right-wing BJP in 2014.

He asserted that the architects of the massacre of thousands of Muslims in Gujarat do not have the moral high-ground to preach about the rights of minorities to India's neighbouring countries.

"Today's India is synonymous with lynching of members of minority communities including low caste Dalits by mobs, often with state complicity," he said.

He said that the persecution of nearly 8 million unarmed and innocent Kashmiri Muslims, incarcerated by 900,000 Indian security forces for over four months, is a living testimony to India being a country with no respect for human rights and minority rights.

"We urge the international community to take notice of the violation of minorities' rights in India, including the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir under the illegal occupation of India.

Raveesh Kumar, the spokesperson for Indian External Affairs Ministry, on Thursday last, termed Prime Minister Imran Khan's criticism on the India's Lok Sabha's controversial citizenship bill which he described as India's internal matter.

"The Pakistani Prime Minister must take steps to protect the rights of its religious minorities rather than compulsively issuing statements," Kumar further maintained.

In a series of tweets on Thursday last, Prime Minister Khan said that India, under Modi, has been moving systematically with its Hindu supremacist agenda. "Starting with illegal annexation & continuing siege of IOJK; then stripping 2 million Indian Muslim in Assam of citizenship, setting up internment camps; now the passage of Citizenship Amendment Law".

"All this accompanied by mob lynching of Muslims and other minorities in India. World must realize, as appeasement of the genocidal Supremacist agenda of Nazi Germany eventually led to WWII, Modi's Hindu Supremacist agenda, accompanied by threats to Pakistan under a nuclear overhang will lead to massive bloodshed and far-reaching consequences for the world. As in Nazi Germany, in Modi's India dissent has been marginalized and the world must step in before it is too late, to counter this Hindu Supremacist agenda of Modi's India threatening bloodshed & war," Prime Minister Khan added.

The Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), passed by the Indian Lok Sabha, seeks to amend 1955 law to grant citizenship to Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Christians, Sikhs and Parsis 'facing persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan' - but excludes Muslims.