India on Friday maintained a studied silence on Pakistan foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto’s stinging criticism of the Narendra Modi government.

Referring to the Modi government as “Fascist-Islamophobic”, Bhutto said India’s policies had left little room for engagement between the two countries.

In an interview to the French news network, France24, in New York where he is scheduled to attend the United Nations General Assembly, Bhutto said: “The India today is a changed India. It is no longer the secular India promised by its founding fathers to its citizens. It is increasingly becoming a Hindu supremacist India at the expense of its Christian and Muslim minorities.”

Dwelling on Muslims in India, he said even those in the “disputed region” of Jammu and Kashmir are feeling persecuted. “In Jammu and Kashmir, we have certain steps and actions that made engagement with India untenable for us, particularly the unilaterally illegal actions of August 2019 where India tried to undermine the resolutions of the United Nations, the UNSC, change the boundaries of this disputed territory.”

Bhutto said India was attempting to turn the Muslim majority in Jammu and Kashmir into a minority in their own land.

“All this creates very little space for us to engage. It’s an absolutely racist policy, it’s a Fascist, Islamophobic policy,” he said.

On whether India offered any help to Pakistan to deal with the recent floods or if Islamabad had sought any help from New Delhi, Bhutto answered in the negative.

Prime Minister Modi had tweeted a message of condolence for the loss of lives due to the floods, but there was no official offer of help. In this, the Modi government appeared to have been guided by the 2010 experience when the UPA dispensation had offered help but Pakistan took days to make up its mind on whether to accept it and finally agreed on the condition that it be routed through the United Nations.