Bharatiya Janata Party workers took to the streets in Uttar Pradesh’s Lucknow Saturday to burn effigies of Pakistan foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, whose poisonous comments about prime minister Narendra Modi at the United Nations have led to a nationwide protest.
Today’s protests in Lucknow come a day after a massive agitation near the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi; people were seen holding placards targeting the Pak minister. Similar protests have been planned across India as the BJP hits back over the targeting of Modi.
In Delhi, senior BJP members and Bengaluru MP Tejashvi Surya, as well as Delhi BJP working president Virendra Sachdeva, took to streets of the city in protest against the comment.
Visuals from Lucknow show a horde (many waving BJP flags) carrying placards saying ‘Bilawal Bhutto murdabad, murdabad’ while others stamp on burning effigies of the Pak politician.
On Thursday Bhutto made what the BJP has condemned as ‘highly shameful… derogatory’ remarks about the PM; he compared Modi to slain terrorist Osama bin Laden and said, ‘… butcher of Gujarat (a reference to the 2002 riots) lives and he is prime minister of India’.
The Indian government hit back with a scathing response; the external affairs ministry slammed Bhutto for his ‘uncivilised outburst’ and said, “These comments are a new low, even for Pakistan. Pakistan foreign minister’s frustration would be better directed towards the masterminds of terrorist enterprises in his own country, who have made terrorism a part of their state policy. Pakistan needs to change its own mindset or remain a pariah.”
“We wish that (the) Pakistan FM had listened more sincerely yesterday at the UN Security Council to the testimony of Anjali Kulthe, a Mumbai nurse who saved the lives of 20 pregnant women from the bullets of the Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab. Clearly, the foreign minister was more interested in whitewashing Pakistan’s role,” the ministry said.
The Pak minister’s vicious attack came after Indian foreign minister S Jaishankar hit out at the neighbouring country for sponsoring terrorists and spreading terrorism in the region.