At the UN, India rejected the OIC's remarks on Jammu and Kashmir and its anti-terror actions. It said cross-border terrorism from Pakistan will draw consequences and pressed for stronger global legal action.

India on Tuesday rejected the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation's remarks on Jammu and Kashmir and New Delhi's actions against terror infrastructure in Pakistan, saying the grouping was "unable to separate fact from fiction and distinguish between victim and perpetrator". Speaking at the UN General Assembly Sixth Committee on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism, Lok Sabha MP Biplab Kumar Deb said India retained the right to defend its people against cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan and that there would be consequences for indulging in terrorism.

Deb, who is part of a 15-member delegation of MPs visiting the UN for a familiarisation week, also used the intervention to underline India's wider position on terrorism. He said India knew from "bitter experience" that terrorism was a "persistent and daily reality", called for an early conclusion of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, and warned that terror groups were increasingly using emerging technologies for recruitment, radicalisation, propaganda, operational planning and financing. The MPs are scheduled for a range of engagements at the UN during the visit.

Responding to a statement delivered by Saudi Arabia on behalf of the OIC, Deb said: "I also address now the statement delivered by the chair of the OIC on India's focused and measured actions against terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, from where terrorist attacks against India were planned and directed." He added that it was "regrettable that those delivering the statement" were "unable to separate fact from fiction and distinguish between victim and perpetrator".

The OIC had referred to the "military escalation in Southeast Asia" and "unjustified strikes" carried "on multiple locations in Pakistan", though it did not mention India. Its statement also referred to UN Security Council resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir.

Rejecting what he called the OIC's "unwarranted reference" to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, Deb said: "The OIC chair would do better to focus on Pakistan's illegal occupation, especially in Rawalakot, where wanton killings, brutal violence and the denial of basic rights to the people living there are so visible. Such willful blindness only speaks of bigotry and intolerance." Pakistan-occupied Kashmir has seen protests for several months over 12 contentious refugee seats, followed by a crackdown by security forces and allegations of rigging in the recently held elections to the so-called legislative assembly.

Deb said the terrorist attack in Pahalgam in April last year had again shown the human cost of terrorism. "The Pahalgam terror attack was a calculated assault on our sovereignty, planned and executed by networks that continue to enjoy state patronage, safe havens, and material and logistical support from across our western border," he said. The April 22 attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam killed 26 civilians, mostly tourists, and was carried out by The Resistance Front, a proxy of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba.

In May last year, India launched Operation Sindoor targeting terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in retaliation. Deb said terrorism in all its forms, including cross-border terrorism, remained one of the gravest threats to humanity. "It attacks the most fundamental human right of every human being - the right to life. Terrorism is antithetical to the values of the UN. There can be no justification whatsoever for deliberately targeting civilians.

There is no distinction between good and bad terrorism," he said. He also cited Prime Minister Narendra Modi's remark that India considers "even a single attack as one too many and even a single life lost as one too many", and said New Delhi viewed terrorist attacks as attacks against humanity.

India also told the committee that a key gap in global efforts against terrorism remained the absence of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, despite a draft being circulated by India in 1996. "India reiterates that an early conclusion of the CCIT would strengthen the international legal framework to comprehensively counter terrorism," Deb said. He also said the New Delhi Declaration adopted at the BRICS Leaders' Summit last month had strongly condemned the Pahalgam attack and had also condemned all acts of terrorism as criminal and unjustifiable.

In sum, India's message at the UN was that it would continue to defend itself against cross-border terrorism while pressing for stronger international action and legal measures against terror.