Ram Madhav slams Pakistan for 'blatant lies' on Palestinian victims' pictures

Slamming Pakistan for presenting pictures of Palestinian victims and trying to pass them off as 'evidence' of atrocities on Kashmiris, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) General Secretary Ram Madhav on Monday said that it is shocking to see Pakistan resort to such 'blatant lies.'

'It's really shocking that Pakistan chose to resort to such blatant lies in response to a very significant speech by our foreign minister,' Ram Madhav told ANI. Pakistan's Ambassador to the United Nations Maleeha Lodhi on Sunday in her right to reply to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj's speech at the UN, showed pictures of the Palestinian victims and tried to pass them off as 'evidence' of atrocities on Kashmiris.

Madhav said that this shows the prevailing situation in Pakistan, adding, 'they are clueless, they are directionless, they are controlled by forces that is a disturbing force to the world peace, and this is what came out of Maleeha Lodi's lies at the UN yesterday.' Maleeha Lodhi in her speech at the UN, resorted to waving dramatic pictures of a girl with pellet injuries on her face and added, "this was the face of Indian democracy", while suggesting that Kashmiris had been injured by pellet guns.

However, upon closer inspection of the picture, Maleeha Lodhi's claim seemed to have boomeranged on her. The picture used by Pakistan's Ambassador to the UN was reported by a number of media outlets as that of Rawia Abu Joma'a, a 17-year-old girl injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza city in 2014. Rawia's picture was taken by award winning photographer Heidi Levine.

On Saturday, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had said India has risen, despite being the principal destination of Pakistan's nefarious export of terrorism. "India has risen despite being the principal destination of Pakistan's nefarious export of terrorism. There have been many governments under many parties during 70 years of Indian freedom, for we have been a sustained democracy," she said.

"Every government has done its bit for India's development. We have marched ahead consistently without pause, in education, health and across the range of human welfare. We established scientific and technical institutions which are the pride of the world," Swaraj added, while addressing the 72nd UNGA session in New York.

The External Affairs Minister also questioned as to what has Pakistan offered to the world and to its own people apart from terrorism. In a stinging response to Pakistan at the UNGA, Swaraj said that India is completely engaged in fighting poverty, whereas Islamabad seems engaged in fighting New Delhi.