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Indian Muslims are not a minority: Saudi Arabia

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD OCT. 20. The Saudi Foreign Minister, Saud al-Faisal, has told Islamabad not to consider Indian Muslims as a "minority" who needed "outside help" to resolve their problems.

Prince Faisal was provoked into making these remarks at a press conference here on Sunday when a Pakistani journalist attacked India for its alleged atrocities against Muslims in general and Kashmiris in particular.

"I would hate to think of the Muslims in India as a minority coming from a country that had less Muslims. These Muslims are not scattered in the wind. They are people with substance. They are people with courage and with enough of that courage to stand up for their interests by themselves and not to wait for the help of others."

Asked by the scribe what Saudi Arabia was planning to alleviate the "sufferings" of Indian Muslims, Prince Faisal said they neither needed the help of Saudi Arabia nor Pakistan even as the Pakistan Foreign Minister, Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri, looked on.

On the Kashmir issue, the Prince said Saudi Arabia thought "a wise leadership from Pervez Musharraf in seeking peaceful settlement with India is the right way to go. We will do everything we can to help in bringing about this peaceful settlement".

The main problem that divided India and Pakistan and threatened peace in the region was Kashmir. "So anything we can do for peace and to settle the issue of Kashmir, we will certainly do that," he added.

Prince Faisal's remarks must have come as an embarrassment to the Pakistani establishment as it would like the rest of the world to believe that Muslims in India were not only a minority but also a helpless community.

Islamabad had stepped up its campaign on these lines particularly since the Gujarat riots in February last.

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