By
Sajjad Shaukat
Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh arrived in
Pakistan on August 3, this year to participate in the 3-day conference of the
interior ministers/home ministers and other delegates of the South Asian
Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) member states, held in Islamabad.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s visit came at a
time, when the tensions between Pakistan and India is running high in the
aftermath of weeks-long violence in India-held Kashmir.
In his address to the SAARC interior ministers’
conference, like the past practice, India’s home minister made a direct taunt,
aimed at the Pakistani government for its strong condemnation of the killing of
Kashmiri leader Burhan Wani by Indian forces.
In response, Pakistan’s Interior Minister
Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said, “use of excessive force to suppress protests in
the Indian-held Kashmir…using torture against innocent children and violence
against civilians qualifies as terrorism…there is a need to end an extremist
mindset and instead try to solve regional issues with dialogue. Nisar added,
“Like the attacks in Pathankot, Kabul, Mumbai and Dhaka…Pakistan too has lost
many innocent lives due to terrorism…the use of blame game has not benefited anyone
for the past six decades.”
Referring again to unrest in India-occupied
Kashmir, the federal minister stated, “No country should suppress freedom
struggles, while camouflaging them under the guise of terrorism.” Nisar
reiterated the Kashmiri freedom struggle is sanctified by United Nations
resolutions.
As Indian government officials were feeling
guilty in wake of continued state terrorism on the Kashmiris, hence, they made
it clear that Singh will not have a separate meeting with his Pakistani
counterpart Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. However, no bilateral meeting between the
Indian home minister and his Pakistani counterpart took place on the sidelines
of the ministerial conference of SAARC.
Earlier, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
assured the SAARC conference that Pakistan will stand alongside its South Asian
neighbours to eradicate corruption, organised crime and terrorism from the
region. He elaborated, “The National Action Plan and carrying out the operation
Zarb-i-Azb…the success proves that Pakistan is committed towards wiping out
terrorism from its territory…Pakistan wishes for peace in all countries across
the region and has always supported SAARC in pursuit of its goals.”
In fact, It is due to Indian war-mongering
policy, desire to become a super power of Asia, illegal occupation of Kashmir
and delaying tactics in settling all outstanding issues with Islamabad,
particularly the Kashmir dispute that SAARC could not achieve its real
objectives.
Nevertheless, thousands of people thronged the
streets across Pakistan to protest against the visit of Indian Home Minister
Rajnath Singh, holding rallies, raising anti-India slogans and setting ablaze
effigies of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi Modi and Indian flags to
condemn the Indian Army’s atrocities in occupied Kashmir.
In Islamabad, leaders and activists belonging to
the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, the United Jihad Council and other human
rights organisations chanted slogans against India for the recent acts of
barbarism and human rights violations in Indian-held Kashmir. They said that
there was no other way to resolve the Kashmir issue, but to paving the way for
Kashmiris’ right to self-determination.
Kashmiri leaders urge the international community
and the world human rights organisations to take notice of Indian state
terrorism and aggression on the Kashmiris and exert pressure on India to
withdraw the occupation forces from the Valley.
In Lahore, the main rally was held on the Mall
road outside Masjid-i-Shuhada and participated by a large number of students,
lawyers, traders, civil society and people from other walks of life. The
protesters were holding placards and banners bearing inscriptions against India
and in support of Kashmiris and were raising slogans against Pakistani rulers
for receiving the representative of a killer government—carrying out genocide
of the Kashmiri Muslims.
Addressing the a protest-rally, Jamaatud Daawa
(JD) Ameer Hafiz Saeed said that Islamabad should have emulated the Kashmiri
leaders from occupied valley, who had refused to meet Rajnath Singh when he
visited the Indian Occupied Kashmir recently. He appealed to the world to send
a caravan for Kashmiris carrying essential food and medicine supplies like on
the pattern of Freedom Flotilla for Palestinians, since Kashmiris today are
facing severe shortage of food and medicines because of complete blockade of
the valley for the last four weeks.
Nonetheless, the visit of Indian Home Minister
Rajnath Singh was quite significant in the backdrop of boiling situation in the
Indian-occupied Kashmir and Mehbooba Mufti’s demand from Indian government “to
restart the peace process with Pakistan” initiated by former prime minister
Atal Behari Vajpayee. Ms. Mufti had tried to cool own situation in the
Indian-controlled Kashmir on the sidelines of Peoples Democratic Party’s 17th
foundation day by saying that she would have spared life of Burhan Wani in
case, she had knowledge about his (Wani’s) presence during the encounter. The
statement is although a political stunt, yet its impact on BJP-PDP coalition in
the Indian-held Kashmir and Raj Nath Singh’s visit to Pak, seems immense.
The Indian-held Kashmir is bracing continued
siege and prolonged curfew for more than 28 days, while Indian security forces
have martyred more than 80 innocent persons in these days. But, indigenous
freedom movement by Kashmiri people against the Indian occupation forces have
accelerated since the Indian forces martyred Kashmiri leader Burhan Wani.
It is notable that since the leader of the
ruling party BJP Modi became Prime Minister of India, various developments like
unprecedented rise of Hindu extremism, persecution of minorities even of lower
cast-Hindus, forced conversions of other religious minorities into Hindus, ban
on beef and cow slaughter, inclusion of Hindu religious books in curriculum,
creation of war-like situation with Pakistan etc. clearly show that encouraged
by the Hindu fundamentalist outfits such as BJP, RSS VHP, Bajrang Dal and Shiv
Sena including other similar parties have been promoting religious and ethnic
chauvinism in India by propagating ideology of Hindutva (Hindu nationalism).
Especially, assaults on Christians and Muslims including their places of
worships and property have been intensified by the fanatic Hindu mobs.
While, New Delhi has introduced various laws and
new battalions, but the same has failed in suppressing various freedom
movements and uprisings all over India.
As regards India’s relations with neighbouring
countries and role in SAARC, there is no neighbour around India, which does not
suffer from her arrogance. Whenever the situation is favourable for a
meaningful dialogue between Islamabad and New Delhi, RSS driven BJP creates
conditions to cook up lame excuses to pollute the diplomatic ambiance.
BJP government‘s trademark allegations against
Pakistan and incessant demand for probe or cooperation on various orchestrated
issues by the Indian intelligence agencies are also noteworthy. In this
respect, blame game against Pakistan for its failures has always been the
favorite tactics and an easy way out for New Delhi. In this context, regarding
terror attacks in Mumbai, Gurdaspur and Pathankot or any other incident, the
blame on Islamabad came within minutes of the incident, forgetting the fact
that a large numbers of separatist movements are active in India, in addition
to its unruly extremist politico-religious elements.
Let us take the example of Pathankot incident,
Indian demand for cooperation and probe is unjustified as no substantiated
evidence has been shared with Pakistan, despite repeated demands by Islamabad.
Pakistani media may highlight Samjhota express, Maligaon and such like other
incidents which clearly indicated the involvement of Hindu extremist
organization elements/ serving Army officers, but the culprits are either set
scot free or exonerated by the India extremist influenced Judiciary.
Returning to our earlier discussion, Indian Home
Minister’s Rajnath Singh’s visit to Pakistan has badly failed in wake of recent
violence by the Indian occupying forces which keep on killing the innocent
Kashmiris.
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