Pak's Parliament passes resolution condemning India's Citizenship Act

Pakistan's Parliament on Monday unanimously passed a resolution terming India's Citizenship Amendment Act against the bilateral agreements and asked New Delhi to revoke the discriminatory clauses in it. The Citizenship Act seeks to provide citizenship to non-Muslim religious minorities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who arrived in India till December 31, 2014 to escape religious persecution.

The resolution - moved in the National Assembly by Education Minister Shafqat Mahmood - said the Citizenship Act was "against international norms of equality and non-discrimination and International Human Rights Law". "This amendment is also against bilateral agreements and understandings between Indian and Pakistan particularly those on security and rights of minorities in the respective countries," it further said.

The resolution said that the Act was an interference in the affairs of neighbouring countries. It said that Act "ostensibly tried to give the impression that (it) would provide protection to minorities from neighbouring countries while ignoring the fact that the rights of minorities in India continued to be violated."

It called India to revoke the discriminatory clauses in the Citizenship Act and immediately halt the use of force against the religious minorities. The resolution also reaffirmed solidarity with the people of Kashmir and demanded India to lift the curfew and information blackout from the Valley.

Earlier in the day, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that he was "concerned about the brutal and indiscriminate use of force by the state on Indian Muslim students." "The Modi Government continues to curb and undermine the rights of minorities in accordance with Hindutva Supremacist ideology," he tweeted.

PTI SH ZH ZH