New Delhi: Hitting back at the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) for its "one-sided" resolution on Jammu and Kashmir and on being a "mouth piece" of Pakistan, India on October 18 regretted that the grouping has ignored cross-border terrorism that is at the root of the problem in the state and in Indo- Pak ties.

"It is regrettable that the Islamic countries have once again shown inability to take an objective and independent view of the Jammu and Kashmir issue and India-Pakistan relations," External Affairs Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said in response to a question on the OIC communique.

The spokesman said, "One would have thought that as a result of the current process of introspection, the OIC as an organisation is going through, their communique would have less rhetoric and propaganda and more substance."

The OIC communique had backed Pakistan's demand for a plebiscite in Jammu and Kashmir and criticised, what it called, human rights violations in India.

Regretting that the OIC, by taking "once-sided positions", had become a mouthpiece of Pakistan's posturing on Kashmir, the spokesman said OIC countries did not enhance their credibility in the eyes of India and its people.

"This is not 'enlightened moderation' that OIC wishes to inculcate. Jammu and Kashmir has a democratically elected representative government and the human rights of the Kashmiri people are protected better by India's secular and democratic ethos than in the case of Pakistan and its people," he said.

PTI