I have been forced to take the floor to call out the blatant misrepresentation of facts and false narrative given by the delegate from a particular neighbouring country.

This is an ill-disguised effort to advance its territorial ambitions.

We reject the propaganda.

We should call out those who have misused this platform for malicious political agendas under the garb of human rights.

Those who are attempting to speak on the human rights of minorities in other countries cry victim when they actually are the perpetrators.

While that particular country’s lack of comprehension is not surprising, their pathological compulsion to comment on our internal affairs with the intent of spreading hatred is condemnable.

The most important fundamental right is that to life and globally the single largest threat to that right was from terrorism.

Tragically, the reality facing us is that this particular country is the world’s largest producer and exporter of this evil.

That particular country’s political approaches are rooted in terrorist violence and its global engagement is defined by mainstreaming of terrorism as an instrument of statecraft.

Having mainstreamed terrorism and hate speech, that particular country is trying to play its wild card as the newfound champion of human rights.

This world is fully aware that this fabricated narrative comes from the contemporary epicentre of global terrorism, which is home to 130 UN-designated terrorists and 25 terrorist entities listed by the UN as on date.

This nation uses terrorism as an instrument of state policy and conducts cross-border terrorism as a form of “alternate diplomacy”.

While India is thriving on vibrant democracy with a millennium-old heritage of diversity, pluralism and tolerance, the practitioners of state-sponsored terrorism thrive on conflict and never welcome the ray of peace.

That particular country realises that our recent administrative rearrangement cuts the very ground from under its feet by creating obstacles in its continuing sponsorship of cross border terrorism against India.

That particular country is home to all shades of darkness, from extremist ideologies and darker powers of radicalisation to the darkest manifestations of terrorism.

India certainly does not need sermons from a country which has shrunk its minority community population from 23 per cent in 1947 to just three per cent now by subjecting them to draconian blasphemy laws, systemic persecution, blatant abuse and forced conversions.

Those who are attempting to speak on the human rights of minorities in other countries cry victim when they are actually the perpetrators.

It is a country whose leadership uses the UN platform to openly preach nuclear war and issue a call to arms against other nations.

It is the country where organisations such as Hizbul Mujahideen, Jamaat ud Dawa, Lashkar e Taiba and many other banned terrorist outfits openly conduct their activities, collect funds from the streets and run their offices with the active support of the state machinery.

The peace-loving intellectuals of this august gathering would serve humanity well by coming together to impress upon that particular country to be a normal country and eschew preaching, practising and propagating terrorism.

Citizens of India do not need anyone else to speak on their behalf, least of all those who have built an industry of terrorism from the ideology of hate.

HE B Subba Rao is the Charge d’Affaires at the Embassy of India in Phnom Penh.