Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York on Friday as people protested outside against the lockdown in occupied Kashmir.
Modi, in his address in Hindi, told world leaders that India’s “voice against terrorism to alert the world about its evil rings with seriousness and outrage”.
“For the sake of humanity, it is imperative that the world unites against terrorism,” he said, according to The Hindu. “The face of the world is changing, modern technology is bring about sweeping changes in different spheres of life. In such a situation, a fragmented world is in the interest of no one.”
“Terror is not an issue pertaining to one country, but a challenge faced by the entire world,” he added. “A world that is divided by terror is opposing the principles on which UN was founded.”
As expected, the Indian premier avoided any mention of New Delhi’s crackdown in occupied Kashmir or of Pakistan.
According to Hindustan Times, this is the first time that Pakistan has not been mentioned in an Indian address — by the prime minister or the external affairs minister — in the General Assembly in eight years. The only time India omitted Pakistan from its speech in the last decade was in 2011, added the publication.
Outside the UN, people from the Muslim, Sikh and other communities gathered to protest India’s continued lockdown in occupied Kashmir, which was imposed on August 5 ahead of New Delhi’s unilateral move to annex occupied Jammu & Kashmir.
Massive crowd pulling in outside UN to show solidarity with Kashmiri people and to protest against Modi’s ethnic cleansing drive in Kashmir #ImranKhanVoiceOfKashmir pic.twitter.com/42X89Ot3U4
— PTI (@PTIofficial) September 27, 2019
Last Saturday, Modi arrived in Houston to attend a rally, titled “Howdy Modi” — a Texan cliché — at which President Donald Trump, too, made an appearance.
Pakistanis, Kashmiris and Sikhs living in the United States had converged on Houston to express their indignation with the Indian prime minister over the scrapping of occupied Kashmir’s special status and excesses committed by Delhi’s law enforcement agencies against minorities.
