Butcher of Gujrat has become India’s PM, says FM Bilawal
Responding to India’s terror allegations, Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that Osama bin Laden has died but the “butcher of Gujarat”, Narendra Modi, is still alive and has become the Prime Minister of India.
Foreign minister called India’s prime minister the “Butcher of Gujarat” after his counterpart accused Pakistan of being the “epicentre of terrorism” as the nuclear-armed neighbours engaged in a war of words Thursday at the United Nations.
New Delhi accuses Islamabad of harbouring militants who launch attacks on its soil, including the 2008 Mumbai attacks that left scores dead.
Indian foreign minister S Jaishankar on Thursday called Pakistan the “epicentre of terrorism”.
“My advice is to clean up your act and try to be good neighbour,” he told reporters.
In response, Foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said India sought to conflate Muslims and terrorists, in both countries.
He told Jaishankar that “Osama bin Laden is dead, (but) the Butcher of Gujarat lives and he is the prime minister of India”.
India’s Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi was chief minister of the state of Gujarat when sectarian riots in 2002 left more than 1,000 people dead.
Modi has been accused of turning a blind eye to the violence, and until his election was denied entry to the US.
Bhutto said his country had lost far more lives to terrorism and that he himself was a victim, referring to his mother Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated by a suicide bomber in 2007.
“Why would we want our own people to suffer? We absolutely do not.”
Condemning India’s role in stoking terrorism in Pakistan, the foreign minister said that terrorist elements in Pakistan are getting support from the neighbouring country.
“Foreign elements are actively trying to create instability in Balochistan,” he said.
