India Rebuts Sharif's UNGA Remarks, Warns Terror Will Have Consequences

India delivered a sharp rebuttal to Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's address at the United Nations General Assembly, using its right of reply to reject his remarks as "bizarre" and to warn that continued terrorism from Pakistan would carry consequences.

Speaking in New York on Saturday, Indian diplomat Petal Gehlot reminded the Assembly that Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, had been found living near Pakistan's premier military academy. Her intervention came a day after Sharif addressed the UNGA podium, where he credited US President Donald Trump for what he described as a timely intervention in the 2025 conflict with India and again raised the Kashmir issue.

Gehlot accused Pakistan of duplicity, saying it "claims to uphold security by day and perpetrates terrorism by night." She warned that India's right to defend itself against terrorism would be exercised, and that continued terrorism by Pakistan would have consequences. "We demonstrated last year that terrorists will have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide," she said.

The reference was to Operation Sindoor, launched by India on May 7 last year against terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The strikes were retaliation for the April 22 Pahalgam attack that killed 26 civilians. Trump has repeatedly claimed, including in his own UNGA address this week, that he stopped the war between India and Pakistan; New Delhi has consistently denied any third-party intervention.

On Kashmir, Gehlot described Jammu and Kashmir as an "integral and inalienable part of India" and drew attention to human rights violations in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir. "Ask the people of Rawalkot about the wanton killings and human rights violations by the Pakistan government there," she said. Sharif had argued in his roughly 23-minute address that a just and fair solution to the Kashmir issue was needed to prevent South Asia from returning to the precipice of the 2025 conflict.

India also challenged Pakistan's professed commitment to democratic values and human rights, saying Islamabad is "the regime of the army, for the army and by the army," where puppets may change but the army continues to call the shots. On religious tolerance, the Indian representative pointed to Pakistan's blasphemy laws and its treatment of minorities.

Gehlot urged the Assembly "to recognise Pakistan and its policies for what they are, not what its representatives mendaciously present," adding that repeating falsehoods year after year would not make them true and that Pakistan's duplicity would benefit neither itself nor the world.

Sharif's speech also touched on the Indus Waters Treaty, which India has said will remain in abeyance until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably ends its support for cross-border and all other forms of terrorism. India placed the treaty in abeyance as part of a series of punitive diplomatic and economic measures announced soon after the Pahalgam attack.