Pakistan Caught Lying at UN, Tries to Pass Off Gaza Woman as 'Kashmiri Victim'

New Delhi: Pakistan on Sunday brandished the photo of a woman with facial injuries at the United Nations General Assembly on Sunday. The country’s Permanent Representative to the UN Maleeha Lodhi claimed the woman was a “victim of pellet gun injury in Kashmir”.

The claim, it turns out, was a blatant lie.

The woman in the photo is Rawya abu Jom’a, who was injured in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City in 2014. The critically-acclaimed photo of a then 17-year-old Rawya was taken on July 22, 2014 by award-winning photojournalist Heidi Levine, who is based in Jerusalem.

The photo was also tweeted on March 27, 2015 by Dr Ramy Abdu, whose bio on his verified Twitter account says he is the founder of Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.

While holding up the photo from her chair at the General Assembly, Maleeha Lodhi said, “This, Mr President, is the face of India’s democracy."

Lodhi’s gaffe came as she was replying to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj speech to the world body, where the latter asked Pakistan to introspect why it was lagging in growth.

In her address to the 72nd UN General Assembly session, Swaraj accused Pakistan of waging a war against India and said a country that has been the world's greatest exporter of havoc, death and inhumanity became a champion of hypocrisy by preaching about humanity from this podium.

"I would like today to tell Pakistan's politicians just this much, that perhaps the wisest thing they could do is to look within. India and Pakistan became free within hours of each other. Why is it that today India is a recognised IT superpower in the world, and Pakistan is recognised only as the pre-eminent export factory for terror?" Swaraj asked.

Speaking in Hindi for the second consecutive year at the annual UNGA session, Swaraj said India has risen despite being the principal destination of Pakistan's nefarious export of terrorism.

"We produced scientists, scholars, doctors, engineers. What have you produced? You have produced terrorists... you have created terrorist camps, you have created Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Hizbul Mujahideen and Haqqani network," she said, adding that if Pakistan had spent on its development what it has spent on developing terror, both Pakistan and the world would be safer and better-off today.