New Delhi: India ‘rejects with contempt’ Islamabad's remarks expressing ‘concern’ over Prime Minister Narendra Modi hoisting a saffron flag at the Ayodhya Ram temple, the external affairs ministry said, in turn accusing Pakistan of “bigotry, repression and systemic mistreatment of its minorities”.

Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal while addressing the weekly media briefing on Wednesday (November 26) also rejected Pakistan's statement on a press release issued by UN special rapporteurs expressing alarm over the Indian government's actions following the Pahalgam terror attack, including detentions, house demolitions and restrictions on press freedom.

After Modi hoisted the flag at the Ram temple – marking the completion of its construction where Hindu nationalists demolished the Babri mosque in 1992 – on Tuesday, Pakistan's foreign office had issued a statement expressing “deep concern” over the development.

The judiciary's decision permitting the construction of the Ram temple at the site of the razed mosque “speak[s] volumes about the Indian state's discriminatory approach towards minorities”, while the saga points to “a broader pattern of pressure on religious minorities in India and deliberate attempts at eroding Muslim cultural and religious heritage under the influence of majoritarian Hindutva ideology”, Islamabad said.

It added to call on the “international community to take cognisance of the rising Islamophobia, hate speech and hate-motivated attacks in India”.

Asked about these remarks, Jaiswal on Wednesday said that India “reject[s] them with the contempt they deserve”.

“As a country with a deeply stained record of bigotry, repression and systemic mistreatment of its minorities, Pakistan has no moral standing to lecture others,” the spokesperson said, adding that instead of issuing “hypocritical homilies” Islamabad ought to reflect on its “abysmal” human rights record.

On Monday, ten special rapporteurs – independent experts called on by the UN Human Rights Council to monitor specific human rights situations – issued a statement expressing “alarm about serious human rights violations committed by Indian authorities” in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack.

Noting their communique “with grave concern”, the foreign office in Islamabad on Wednesday claimed that the experts' findings “reaffirm Pakistan's longstanding concerns regarding state-sponsored persecution of Kashmiri Muslims as well as discrimination against minorities across India”.

Jaiswal when asked an omnibus question on these remarks alongside others by Pakistan reiterated his response to Islamabad's statement on the Ram temple. “The whole world is aware of the way human rights are being violated in that country,” he said during Wednesday's briefing.

The rapporteurs after condemning the Pahalgam terror attack – in which 26 civilians, mostly tourists, were singled out and shot dead in a popular meadow on April 22 – said that Indian authorities arrested or detained around 2,800 people “including journalists and human rights defenders” in the shooting's wake.

“Some detainees were allegedly tortured, held incommunicado and denied access to lawyers and family members,” they said in Monday's statement.

They also noted how the homes of Kashmir residents suspected of being members of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba terror outfit were demolished without due process, which they noted contravened the Supreme Court's strictures on bulldozer justice.

“Communications blackouts” as well as restrictions on the press and the government's reported requests to block access to more than 8,000 X accounts following the attack too were condemned by the experts.

“Kashmiri students were subject to surveillance and harassment” while “hate speech and incitement to violence increased against Muslims, inflamed by political figures in the ruling party”, said the rapporteurs.

Their statement also noted the wave of expulsions to Bangladesh and Myanmar – with the latter case pertaining to Indian authorities allegedly casting a group of Rohingyas away into the Andaman Sea in May – of “nearly 1,900 Muslims and Rohingya refugees”.

“Excessive counter-terrorism measures not only violate human dignity, the Indian Constitution and international law, but counter-productively fuel social division and grievances that can spiral into further violence,” the ten experts cautioned.

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