India Slams Pakistan’s ‘Delusional Tirade’ at UN Debate on Women, Peace and Security

India hit back at Pakistan at the United Nations on Tuesday during a Security Council debate on Women, Peace and Security, calling Islamabad’s remarks a “delusional tirade” and accusing it of hypocrisy on women’s rights.

Speaking at the debate, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Parvathaneni Harish, said, “Every year, we are unfortunately fated to listen to the delusional tirade of Pakistan against my country, especially on Jammu and Kashmir — the Indian territory they covet.”

Harish accused Pakistan of “misdirecting the world with hyperbole” while ignoring its own record of rights abuses. “This is a country that conducted Operation Searchlight in 1971 and sanctioned a systematic campaign of genocidal mass rape of 400,000 women citizens by its own army,” he said. “The world sees through Pakistan’s propaganda.”

India’s remarks came in response to Saima Saleem, Counsellor at Pakistan’s Permanent Mission to the UN, who had alleged that Kashmiri women have faced “sexual violence deployed as a weapon of war” under Indian rule. Saleem cited reports by UN human rights mechanisms, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch, calling for the inclusion of Kashmiri women in future UN reports on the Women, Peace and Security agenda.

The Indian envoy dismissed Pakistan’s claims as baseless and pointed to Islamabad’s historical record of atrocities, including Operation Searchlight — a 1971 military crackdown in then–East Pakistan that killed hundreds of thousands of Bengalis and saw an estimated 400,000 women raped by Pakistani forces. The violence triggered India’s intervention, leading to the creation of Bangladesh.

The debate at the UN marked the 25th anniversary of Resolution 1325, a landmark measure adopted in 2000 that called for women’s equal participation in peace processes and protection from conflict-related violence.

The latest exchange comes weeks after India rebuked Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s speech at the UN General Assembly in September, accusing him of peddling “misdirected facts” about Operation Sindoor, India’s counterterror operation following the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir.