Bengali IFS officer Vidisha Maitra gives befitting reply to Pak PM

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan got a befitting reply from intrepid Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer Vidisha Maitra, who nailed him on every single point from his speech. Maitra was so eloquent and to the point, rebutting every argument of Pakistan, that she was lauded by the entire international community for her speech. 

Maitra happens to be the first secretary in the Foreign Ministry and became an instant social media star, drawing praise for her stinging attack on Pakistan PM while exercising India’s right of reply to Khan’s speech at the United National General Assembly (UNGA).

Vidisha Maitra is from IFS 2009 batch and ranked 39th in her IAS examination. She even won the ‘best training officer’ gold medal. She currently is India’s first secretary and one of the new recruits at the United Nations. She is in charge of Security Council (neighbourhood/region) and also looks after the Shanghai cooperation organisation.

The feisty first secretary’s sharpest attack was over Pakistan’s endorsement of terror. Hurling questions at Khan, Maitra asked: “Can Pakistan PM confirm that it is home to 130 UN designated terrorists and 25 terrorist entities listed by the UN? Will Pakistan deny that Financial Action Task Force has put the country on notice for its violations of more than 20 of the 27 key parameters? And would PM Imran Khan deny to the city of New York that he was an open defender of Osama bin Laden?” 

Vidisha Maitra, in her reply, referred to Imran Khan as Imran Khan Niazi. Twitter users saw this reference to his clan, the same of General Niazi who had surrendered to India in 1971 war, as a master-stroke. Imran Khan belongs to the Niazi clan of Mianwali. In 1971, General AAK Niazi, the then lieutenant-general in the Pakistan Army, surrendered his forces to India.

Every word from Imran Khan, Maitra fiercely said, was a callous portrayal of the world in binary terms: “Us versus Them, Rich versus Poor. North vs South, Developed vs Developing, Muslims vs Others. Words like pogrom, bloodbath, racial superiority, ‘pick up the gun’ and ‘fight to the end’ reflect a medieval mentality. For someone who was once a cricketer and believed in the gentleman’s game, today’s speech bordered on crudeness of the variety that is reminiscent of the guns of Darra Adam Khel,” she added. Darra Adam Khel, a town in Frontier Region Kohat located in between Kohat and Peshawar, within the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan. It has gained notoriety for its bazaars packed with gunsmiths, weapons merchants and arms factories.

In her attack on Pakistan’s disappointing record vis a vis minorities, Maitra hit out: “This a country that has shrunk the size of its minority community from 23% in 1947 to 3% today and has subjected Christians, Sikhs, Ahmadiyas, Hindus, Shias, Pashtuns, Sindhis and Balochis to draconian blasphemy laws, systemic persecution, blatant abuse and forced conversions.”