ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has urged India to curb the rising tide of Islamophobic and hateful acts against the Muslims. At her weekly news briefing here in Islamabad on Wednesday, Foreign Office Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch expressed deep concern over the alarming rise in violence against Muslims in India, after latest such acts in eight states of the country. She called on India to take demonstrable steps for protection of Muslims enabling them to practice their faith and hold accountable those responsible for such hateful acts.
Welcoming OIC’s statement in this regard, the spokesperson noted that terrifying rise in Islamophobia in India was consequence of majoritarian Hindutva agenda and anti-Muslim rife in Indian politics. She reiterated Pakistan’s concern about well-being of Kashmiri leaders and human rights defenders incarcerated in India and Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir and impressed upon India to end suppression of journalists and human rights defenders. Responding to a question about remarks of Indian external affairs minister, the spokesperson said the remarks reflect Indian politicians’ unhealthy obsession with Pakistan after they failed to malign and isolate Pakistan at diplomatic front.
She said Indian politicians, in their anti-Pakistan rhetoric, very conveniently overlook the developments in their country where the social fabric has been ripped apart due to the extremist Hindutva ideology. To a question about latest attack of Israeli forces on Palestinians offering prayers in Al Aqsa mosque, Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said Pakistan condemns the attack and urges international community to take immediate action to end these inhuman actions against unarmed Palestinians.
She said this continuous pattern of Israeli oppression not only violates the religious freedom of Palestinians but also hurts religious sentiments of Muslims around the world. She said British Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s remarks on Pakistani men painted a “misleading picture signalling the intent to target and treat British-Pakistanis differently”. Earlier, Braverman came under fire for comments regarding British-Pakistani men. The home secretary during an interview with Sky News had said that British-Pakistani men “hold cultural values at odds with British values”.
The UK minister was talking about plans to tackle child abuse when she singled out British-Pakistani men and said: “white English girls, sometimes in care, sometimes who are in challenging circumstances, being pursued and raped and drugged and harmed by gangs of British-Pakistani men who’ve worked in child abuse rings or networks.” The spokesperson while responding to Braverman’s remarks said she had “erroneously branded criminal behaviour of some individuals as a representation of the entire community”.
“She fails to take note of the systemic racism and ghettoization of communities and omits to recognised the tremendous cultural, economic and political contributions that British-Pakistanis continue to make in British society,” Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said. Alluding to Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal’s visit to China, she said the Minister has expressed Pakistan’s desire to explore opportunities for shared growth of developing countries with investments to fill economic gaps.