India Trashes US State Dept Report On Religious Freedom As ‘Deeply Biased’, ‘Selectively Picked’

US Religious Freedom Report: India on Friday junked the annual report on religious freedom by the US State Department as “deeply biased” where a some incidents have been selectively picked “to advance a preconceived narrative against India.”

Reacting to the report, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said India categorically rejects the criticism against it made in the US State Department report on international religious freedom, asserting that the report is visibly driven by vote-bank considerations.

“As in the past, the report is deeply biased, lacks an understanding of India’s social fabric and is visibly driven by votebank considerations and a prescriptive outlook,” Jaiswal said.

“We therefore reject it. The exercise itself is a mix of imputations, misrepresentations, selective usage of facts, reliance on biased sources and a one-sided projection of issues,” he said.

In his remarks at the release of the report, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there has been a “concerning increase” in anti-conversion laws, hate speech and demolitions of homes and places of worship of members of minority faith communities in India.

Rejecting the assertions made in the US report, Jaiswal said the report has “selectively picked incidents to advance a preconceived narrative”.

“In some cases, the very validity of laws and regulations are questioned by the report, the MEA spokesperson said, adding that the report also appears to challenge the integrity of certain judgments given by Indian courts.

(With PTI inputs)