India has rejected the report calling it ‘biased’ and “a new level of misinterpretation”
A U.S. government panel accused Indian authorities of religious insensitivity and criticised them for failing to protect the ‘religious minorities’. The report urged US authorities to slap sanctions on the government officials particularly responsible for the violation of religious freedom in the country. India has rejected the annual report compiled by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) on April 28.
“We reject the observations on India in the USCIRF Annual Report. Its biased and tendentious comments against India are not new. But on this occasion, its misrepresentation has reached new levels. It has not been able to carry its own Commissioners in its endeavour”, the official spokesperson of the external affairs ministry Anurag Srivastava said in a media statement about the observations of India in the USCIRF annual report. “We regard it as an organization of particular concern and will treat it accordingly.”
The commission in its report claimed that the re-elected government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2019 used its parliamentary majority and introduced national policies violating religious freedom in the country, especially targeting the Muslim population. It also criticised the new Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) with special reference to Home Minister Amit Shah referring to the migrants as “termites which need to be eradicated”. The USCIRF tweeted a statement by the Vice-Chair of the US watchdog, Nadine Maenza, that CAA “potentially exposes millions of Muslims to detention, deportation, and statelessness when the government completes its planned nationwide National Register of Citizens”.
The commission recommended that India should be placed in the “country of particular concern” list which already includes China, Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan, Russia, Syria and Vietnam among 14 others.