NEW DELHI: India on Tuesday urged Pakistan to “introspect” over its recent actions, including the 27th Constitutional Amendment that grants lifetime legal immunity to Chief of Defence Forces Asim Munir.
India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish, said Pakistan should begin by examining “how it has allowed its armed forces to engineer a constitutional coup through the 27th Amendment and grant life-time immunity to its Chief of Defence Forces.”
He added that Pakistan was “well advised to reflect seriously on the state of the rule of law in the country.”
Pakistan’s Parliament passed the 27th Constitutional Amendment in November last year under Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government. The amendment grants lifelong protection from prosecution for actions taken during Asim Munir’s tenure. The move has drawn strong criticism within Pakistan, with opposition parties and civil society groups warning of weakened accountability and constitutional overreach.
Harish also criticised Pakistan for once again raising the Kashmir issue at the United Nations, reiterating that the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir “has been, is, and will always remain an integral and inalienable part of India.”
On the Indus Waters Treaty, he accused Pakistan of violating its spirit by waging wars and sponsoring terrorism. “Over the past six and a half decades, Pakistan has violated the spirit of the Treaty by inflicting three wars and thousands of terror attacks on India. Thousands of Indian lives have been lost in Pakistan-sponsored terrorism,” he said.
Referring to the Pahalgam terror attack, Harish said India was “compelled to announce that the Treaty will be held in abeyance until Pakistan — a global epicentre of terror — credibly and irrevocably ends its support for cross-border and all other forms of terrorism.”
