New York/IBNS: India has hit back strongly at Switzerland at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) calling the Swiss diplomat's remark on minorities "surprising, shallow and ill-informed".

Speaking during the General Debate at the Council, Swiss diplomat Michael Meier said, "In India, we call on the government to take effective measures to protect minorities and uphold the rights to the freedom of expression and media."

Meier made the remark at the 60th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Schooling the Swiss diplomat with a counter, Indian diplomat Kshitij Tyagi said, "We would also like to respond to the surprising, shallow and ill-informed remarks made by Switzerland, a close friend and partner. As it holds the UNHRC presidency, it is all the more important for Switzerland to avoid wasting the council's time with narratives that are blatantly false and do not do justice to the reality of India.

"Instead, it should focus on its own challenges such as racism, systematic discrimination and xenophobia. As the world's largest, most diverse and vibrant democracy, with a civilizational embrace of pluralism, India remains ready to help Switzerland address these concerns."

India slams Pakistan on Pahalgam

Slamming Pakistan over the terror attack, Tyagi said, "...Our measured and proportionate response to the Pahalagm attack made that sufficiently clear. We need no lessons from a terror sponsor, no sermons from a persecutor of minorities, no advice from a state that has conjured its own credibility.

"India will continue to protect its citizens with unwavering resolve. We will defend our sovereignty without compromise. And we will continue to expose, time and again, the elaborate deception of a failed state whose survival depends upon trafficking in terror and tragedy..."

The Indian diplomat added, "We are compelled once again to address provocations from a country whose own leadership recently likened it to a dump truck. Perhaps an inadvertently apt metaphor for a state that continues to deposit recycled falsehoods and stale propaganda before this distinguished council.

"Pakistan's systematic abuse of this forum, coupled with its routine manipulation of the OIC as its mouthpiece, has become a familiar pattern. Its pathological fixation on India appears to provide it with existential validation..."