India rejected USCIRF panel’s observation on India as “new level of misinterpretation”

India on Tuesday rejected a sharp critique by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), saying that the bipartisan American government panel’s “misrepresentation has reached new levels”.

Minorities are under increasing assault in India, a bipartisan US commission mandated to monitor religious freedom globally said on Tuesday, placing it in a list of 14 nations including Pakistan, China and North Korea for the first time since 2004.

Rejecting the findings of the annual report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) that include particular criticism of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), India said the panel’s “misrepresentation has reached new levels”.

The comment came after the USCIRF recommended India as a “Country of Particular Concern” where “governments engage in or tolerate systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom”.

Accusing the government of creating “a culture of impunity for nationwide campaigns of harassment and violence against religious minorities”, the USCIRF called for “targeted sanctions against Indian government agencies and officials responsible for severe violations of religious freedom”.

“In 2019, following the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) re-election in May, the national government used its strengthened parliamentary majority to institute national level policies violating religious freedom across India, especially for Muslims,” the report said.

“Home Minister Amit Shah referred to migrants as ‘termites’ to be eradicated… in Uttar Pradesh (UP), the BJP chief minister Yogi Adityanath pledged ‘revenge’ against anti-CAA protestors and stated they should be fed ‘bullets not biryani’,” it added.

“In February 2020, three days of violence erupted in Delhi with mobs attacking Muslim neighborhoods. There were reports of Delhi police, operating under the Home Ministry’s authority, failing to halt attacks and even directly participating in the violence,” the report said.