Indian, Pakistani Delegates Bitterly Argue over Kashmir in Maldives, Sri Lanka

09:01 GMT, 4 September 2019

New Delhi (Sputnik): Pakistan and India seem to be trying to utilise every possible platform available to them to take shots at each other after recent developments taking place in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. The latest venues were in the Maldives and Sri Lanka.

Sputnik

Some recent videos have shown representatives of Pakistan and India exchanging barbs and a heated exchange of words at two separate events - one in the Maldives and the other in Sri Lanka. It happened after Pakistani delegates objected to India’s move to rescind the nearly seven-decades-old special status granted to Jammu and Kashmir.

On 1 September, Indian and Pakistani delegates attending the South Asian Speakers' Summit in the Maldivian capital Male had a bitter argument after a Pakistani representative referred to the Kashmir issue.

The Deputy Chairman of the Upper House of the Indian Parliament (Rajya Sabha), Harivansh Narayan Singh, immediately raised a point of order and strongly rebutted the Pakistani attempt to raise the matter.

"We strongly object to raising the internal issue of India here and we also reject the politicisation of this forum by raising issues which are extraneous to this summit", Singh said at the meeting.

In the Sri Lankan capital city of Colombo, on 3 September, Indian and Pakistani delegations while participating in the UNICEF South Asian Parliamentarian Conference on Children Right's Convention brought up the Kashmir issue again.

Mehnaz Akber Aziz, a Member of Pakistan’s National Assembly, said: "I would like to draw your attention to the situation in Kashmir today. Curfew continues for 30 days".

Countering Aziz, Sanjay Jaiswal, a lawmaker from India’s ruling BJP, asked, "Is this an issue to talk over here?"

Pakistan, however, continued flagging the situation in Indian-administered Kashmir under the guise of child rights, leading Gaurav Gogoi, an Indian lawmaker from the Congress Party, to say Islamabad would be better off improving its human rights record than showing concern over an internal matter of India.

The chair at the meeting had to ask the Pakistani delegation to stop using the forum for its “political agenda”.

Gogoi said in a video statement that it was "highly unfortunate" to see Pakistan trying to internationalise the Jammu and Kashmir matter at a UNICEF-organised child rights conference.

Pakistan has claimed India’s decision to revoke special status of Jammu and Kashmir and alter the territorial status of the state is a direct violation of the Simla Agreement of 1972.

New Delhi, on the other hand, says the decision to revoke the region's special status is an internal matter.

India and Pakistan claim Kashmir in full but govern it in part. The nuclear-armed neighbours have fought two of their three wars over the disputed territory.