Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, while addressing the Global Refugee Forum in Geneva on Tuesday said millions of Muslims who are residing in India would be forced to leave because of India’s new citizenship law, and the ongoing curfew in Indian-occupied Kashmir – creating what he described it “a refugee crisis that would dwarf other crises”, news agency Reuters reported.
Imran Khan further added saying that his nation would not be able to accommodate more refugees and had urged the world to step in now. “We are worried there not only could be a refugee crisis, we are worried it could lead to a conflict between two nuclear-armed countries.”
“Our country will not be able to accommodate more refugees,” Khan added in a statement.
During his speech, he had mentioned three actions of the Indian government – the scrapping of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status, the National Register of Citizens exercise in Assam, and the Citizenship Amendment Act.
Meanwhile, India on Tuesday had reprimanded Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan for making unwarranted comments on internal affairs of India at multilateral platforms.
In response to a query on the statement made by Imran Khan, the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson by the name of Raveesh Kumar said, “Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has once again peddled familiar falsehoods at a multilateral platform to advance his narrow political agenda by making gratuitous and unwarranted remarks on matters entirely internal to India. It should now be clear to the entire world that this is an established pattern of his habitual and compulsive abuse of global forums.”
The spokesperson said that it has been the “unfortunate experience of most of Pakistan’s neighbours that its actions have had adverse consequences next door.”
The Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson stated that the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, for the last 72 years, has systematically persecuted all its minorities, forcing most of them to go to India. Khan, he added, “wishes the world forgets what his Army did in 1971 to the people of erstwhile East Pakistan.”
“Pakistan would do well to remember that India is the world’s largest democracy, that all its governments have been freely and fairly elected through universal adult franchise, and that all Indians irrespective of faith enjoy equal rights under the Constitution. We urge Pakistan to similarly aspire to these ideals,” the statement said.
The government also went on to clarify once again that the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 does not prevent anyone from his or her citizenship in India but grants citizenship to ‘persecuted religious minorities’ from select foreign nations.