India slams brazen persecution of minorities in Pakistan, asks Imran Khan to look within

“Look inwards, rather than meddle in internal affairs of India.” This is the stern message by India to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has accused the Modi government of pursuing Hindu supremacist agenda through the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill.

“I am not going to respond to every unwarranted and gratuitous comments made by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan on our internal affairs,” Raveesh Kumar, spokesperson of India’s Ministry of External Affairs, told journalists when asked about his reaction to Khan’s anti-India comments.

“Such comments cannot absolve Pakistan of the blatant persecution of the religious minorities which flows, including from the discrimination imbibed in its Constitution, the draconian blasphemy laws; the apathy of the State institutions in protecting the girls belonging to minority community from rape, abduction, forced conversion and marriages; vandalism and destruction of religious places of worship.”

In a hard-hitting message, the spokesperson said: “Instead of casting aspersions on others, Pakistan needs to look inwards and ensure protection and promotion of the rights of its minorities and co-religionists rather than compulsively comment on others in the breach of internationally recognized norms.”

In a series of tweets, Imran Khan had attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over CAB by saying that India has been “moving systematically with its Hindu Supremacist agenda” under Modi. India, under Modi, has been moving systematically with its Hindu Supremacist agenda. Starting with illegal annexation & continuing siege of IOJK; then stripping 2 mn Indian Muslim in Assam of citizenship, setting up internment camps; now the passage of Citizenship Amendment Law, all this accompanied by mob lynchings of Muslims & other minorities in India,” Imran Khan had written on Twitter.

“As in Nazi Germany, in Modi’s India dissent has been marginalised & the world must step in before it is too late, to counter this Hindu Supremacist agenda of Modi’s India threatening bloodshed & war,” alleged Khan.

Imran Khan has been relentlessly accusing PM Modi of pursuing Hindu supremacist agenda, and made scurrilous remarks on these lines in his speech at the United Nations General Assembly in September.

“Imran Khan has a genius for lying and indulging in reckless propaganda against Prime Minister Modi and India. The region and the world should know that minority Christians are brutally tortured, and even murdered, in Pakistan,” said Manish Chand, Editor-in-Chief, India and the World magazine and India Writes Network.

“Hindus in Pakistan suffer rampant institutionalised discrimination, which has forced hundreds of them to flee and seek refuge in India. Many of them have complained of being treated like second-class citizens in Pakistan. These instances of widespread religious discrimination and persecution of minorities have been widely reported and documented, and can be independently investigated,” he said.

This pernicious attempt by Imran Khan to instigate polarisation and divisive sentiments in India will, however, never succeed, he said.

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