ISLAMABAD: Foreign Office spokesperson Asim Iftikhar said that Indian leadership should improve conditions of Indian Muslims and other minorities if it is aware of pain and suffering. In a statement, he said that last seven decades of India’s history are full of irrefutable evidence, that history proved that New Delhi’s support for secularism was sham.

“It is deplorable that BJP government, as part of its divisive political agenda, is wantonly attempting to play with sentiments of people through distorted interpretation of history,” Foreign Office said in a statement issued here. FO said, “True to its characteristic revisionist agenda, BJP-RSS led dispensation has again sought to hypocritically and one-sidedly invoke tragic events and mass migration that occurred in wake of Independence in 1947.”

Statement stressed that if Indian leaders genuinely cared about agony, suffering and pain, they must work to improve conditions of Muslims and other minorities in India.

FO said last seven decades had been replete with undeniable proof that India’s espousal of secularism was a sham. “Fact is that today’s India is an undeclared ‘Hindu Rashtra’ that has no place or tolerance for other religious minorities, especially Muslims who are faced with discrimination, persecution and political and socio-economic exclusion,” it said. It said, “Government of India is advised to desist from politicising events related to Independence and instead sincerely honour memories of all those who sacrificed for a better future for all”.

Published in The Daily National Courier, August, 11 2022

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