PM Kakar censures West for not recognising India's 'reality'

Pakistan has criticised Western nations for not recognising the "reality" about New Delhi's right-wing leadership.

This comes after Canada revealed India's involvement in its citizen's murder case and expelled a representative of the Indian spy agency, resulting in a reciprocal action from India.

Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar connected this incident to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist ideology known as Hindutva.

Earlier this week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asserted that Indian agents had a hand in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist, near Vancouver in June.

Trudeau claimed that there are "credible allegations of a potential link" between the slaying of Khalistani leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June and Indian government agents.

However, India has refuted the assertion, calling it "absurd and motivated", the Hindustan Times reported.

"These ideologues of Hindutva, they are becoming emboldened in a manner that they are now going beyond the region," Kakar said at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York as he took part in the UN General Assembly.

The "unfortunate killing of Mr Singh on Canadian soil is a reflection of that ominous tendency," he said.

"But for obvious economic and strategic reasons, many players in the Western capitals chose to ignore this fact and reality," he said.

He said the rising wave of Hindutva-inspired anti-Muslim extremism in India should be a matter of deep concern for the entire international community including the US.

Western powers led by the United States have been courting India for years, seeing a natural ally in the billion-plus democracy as concerns mount about China.

Modi showcased India's global role earlier this month as he led the Group of 20 summit in New Delhi.

He has promoted the identity of the Hindu majority in the diverse country, with rights groups accusing him of creating a dangerous atmosphere for religious minorities, who include Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs.

Nijjar, who was wanted by India for alleged terrorism and conspiracy to commit murder, advocated carving out a separate Sikh state known as Khalistan.

India has long alleged that Pakistan has provided support to the Khalistan movement, which carried out an insurgency in the 1980s crushed by Indian security forces.

The prime minister, meanwhile, also urged the US administration to persuade the Indian government that without amicably resolving the Kashmir dispute, as per the wishes of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, the peoples of South Asia could not be freed from perennial instability.

He said Pakistan remained desirous of peaceful relations with India but it also required reciprocal sincerity by the Indian government.

"The measures taken by India in 2019 in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir have pushed our region into a dangerous and dark alley," the premier said in his address at CFR.

— Additional input by AFP and APP