Pakistan condemns demolition of ancient mosque, calls on UN, OIC to hold India ‘accountable’ 

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has condemned the demolition of an ancient mosque in the Indian state of Haryana, and called on the United Nations (UN), Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and other human rights organizations, to hold India “accountable.”
Indian authorities razed Bilal Masjid in Haryana’s Faridabad area earlier this week. Pictures and videos purportedly showing the demolition operation were widely circulated on social media, with heavy machinery seen tearing down the building.
Attacks on members of religious and ethnic minorities and their places of worship have become frequent in India, whose government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is accused of discriminating against the minority community in the Hindu-majority country. Modi denies the charge.
“Pakistan strongly condemns unjust demolition of Bilal Mosque in Haryana by Indian authorities, in consort with pliant judiciary under Bharatiya Janata Party-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh regime,” Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, a spokesperson of the Pakistani Foreign Office, said in a statement, referring to the ruling party of India.
“The Hindutva driven BJP-RSS combine’s perpetual targeting of Muslims and their places of worship is indelible blot on the so-called ‘largest democracy’.” 
The statement also recalled the Indian Supreme Court’s November 2019 judgment that allowed the construction of Ram Mandir at the site of the historic the 16th-century Babri Mosque, demolished in 1992 by Hindu mobs, triggering riots in which about 2,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed across India.
Court battles over the ownership of the site followed, ending in 1992 when the court awarded the bitterly contested religious site to Hindus.
“The Indian judiciary was also culpable in acquitting the criminals who had organized the destruction of the Babri Masjid in public glare,” the Pakistani statement said. 
Muslims and their places of worship were attacked “with state complicity” during anti-Muslim pogroms in Gujarat and New Delhi in February 2020, it said. 
The Pakistani foreign office also urged the international community, particularly the UN, OIC and other rights organizations, to “hold India accountable for systematic human rights violations of minorities, especially Muslims.”