UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan once again offered India an impartial inquiry into the evictions of Muslims from Assam and Tripura. Speaking in the UN General Assembly, Pakistan Foreign Minister, Mr Z.A. Bhutto, said that Pakistan was prepared to accept the determination by an impartial tribunal or some other international body whether or not the evictees were really Pakistani citizens, as claimed by India, or whether they were Indian nationals expelled by India for possessing the same faith as the majority of the people of Pakistan.

The offer was made to India when the Home Ministers of India and Pakistan had met, Mr Bhutto informed the General Assembly, but was turned down by India on the ground that it would infringe on the sovereign right to decide on the nationality of its own citizens.

Mr Bhutto added “now it is true that the right to determine whether a person is the national of a certain country must rest prima facie with that country. In the present case, even if the matter were to be considered in purely legalistic terms India has no right to determine unilaterally that the persons involved are Pakistanis and then to push them across the border into Pakistan”. Mr Bhutto strongly condemned the “callous and inhuman treatment” meted out to the evictees which was “a blot on the consciousness of civilization”. The Foreign Minister also offered India Pakistan’s readiness to discuss the manner in which the people of Jammu and Kashmir might exercise their rights of self-determination.

Published in Dawn January 24th , 2015

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