ISLAMABAD – Leading American publication, the New York Times, on Fridaypublished an article of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan explained inlength the steps taken by him for normalising relations with India afterassuming office in August last.
These included writing letters thrice to Indian counterpart Narendra Modito resolve all outstanding issues bilaterally, including the long-standingKashmir dispute.
“Unfortunately, all my efforts to start a dialogue for peace,were rebuffedby India,” the prime minister said in the articlelink,recalling that India instead responded by blaming Pakistan for itsPulwama’s terrorist incident.
The prime minister mentioned that on asking for evidence, India sent itsfighter jets inside Pakistani territory, which were brought down byPakistan Air Force and the captured Indian pilot was returned with nopreconditions.
Imran Khan said Modi had mistaken Pakistan’s desire for peace in a nuclearneighborhood as appeasement.
“We were not simply up against a hostile government. We were up against a“New India,” which is governed by leaders and a party that are the productsof the Hindu supremacist mother ship,Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or theR.S.S,” he said, referring to the racist agenda of Modi’s political party.
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He mentioned Modi’s inspiration of Nazism and anti-semitism, which hepracticed during his tenure as the chief minister of Gujarat against thelocal Muslims.
The prime minister recalled that the United States had earlier denied atravel visa to Narendra Modi States under its International ReligiousFreedom Act a list of visa denials that included associates of SlobodanMilosevic.
Imran Khan said Modi’s first term as prime minister had been marked bylynching of Muslims, Christians and Dalits by extremist Hindu mobs and inIndian-occupied Kashmir, state violence against defiant Kashmiris wasenhanced including the use of pellet-firing shotguns.
He termed India’s ending of Kashmir’s special status as ‘most brazen andegregious move’, and said it was a violation of the United Nations SecurityCouncil resolutions on Kashmir and the Simla Agreement between India andPakistan.
“Modi’s ‘New India’ chose to do this by imposing a military curfew inKashmir, imprisoning its population in their homes and cutting off theirphone, internet and television connections, rendering them without news ofthe world or their loved ones,” he said, adding that the matter needed theurgent attention of the world.
