-President says India is suppressing Kashmiris
-PM finds Modi targeting Muslims to divert backlash over lockdown
-FO asks Delhi to protect minorities
By Asghar Ali Mubarak
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan has hit out at his Indian counterpart for “targeting” the minority Muslim community, describing it as an attempt to divert backlash from coronavirus lockdown, “which has left thousands hungry”.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced a 21-day nationwide lockdown in late March to contain the spread of the Covid-19. The lockdown has been extended till May 3 at least.
In a tweet from his official Twitter handle on Sunday, PM Imran said that the deliberate and violent targeting of Muslims is similar to what Nazis did with Jews in Germany.
‘No data to link Tablighi Jamaat to COVID-19 spread in India’
“The deliberate & violent targeting of Muslims in India by Modi Govt to divert the backlash over its COVID19 policy, which has left thousands stranded & hungry, is akin to what Nazis did to Jews in Gerrmany. Yet more proof of the racist Hindutva Supremacist ideology of Modi Govt,” he said in the tweet.
Indian authorities have blamed the Muslim Tableeghi Jamaat congregation for the spread of coronavirus cases in the country.
There is no official breakdown of Covid-19 cases by religion. But many Muslims feel unfairly blamed for spreading the contagious disease after a cluster emerged at a religious gathering in New Delhi last month.
India has reported over 15,000 infections and more than 500 deaths as of early Sunday, according to an official data.
President Dr Arif Alvi on Sunday said India’s “dirty priority” was to suppress the people in occupied Kashmir, a region that has been under a brutal lockdown since August 5, 2019, when New Delhi revoked its special status and imposed a communications and media blackout.
Dr Alvi also shared sobering data on occupied Kashmir. According to him, there was one ventilator for every 71,000 people, one doctor for every 3,900 people, and one armed soldier for every nine people in the Muslim-majority region.
He sourced his data to the Greater Kashmir and Economic Times publications and the Jammu And Kashmir Civil Coalition Society.
“The dirty priority of the Indian Govt is to suppress the people of Indian Occupied Kashmir,” he said. “Their soldiers have carried out this primary task through heinous brutalization, torture & suppression. “With more than 95K innocent killed since 1989 these numbers shout out to the world,” the president added. Prime Minister Imran Khan, too, tweeted about India’s wicked tactics, comparing the Narendra Modi-led government to the Nazis.
“The deliberate & violent targeting of Muslims in India by Modi Govt to divert the backlash over its COVID19 policy, which has left thousands stranded & hungry, is akin to what Nazis did to Jews in Gerrmany,” PM Imran wrote. “Yet more proof of the racist Hindutva Supremacist ideology of Modi Govt,” he added.
An New York Times report earlier this week said the outbreak of coronavirus in India had triggered a series of attacks against Muslims across the country, with the health ministry of Modi’s Hindu nationalist government claiming that Muslims were spreading the virus. “Young Muslim men who were passing out food to the poor were assaulted with cricket bats. … Other Muslims have been beaten up, nearly lynched, run out of their neighborhoods or attacked in mosques, branded as virus spreaders,” the paper said.
