International   

Gilani equates Mumbai attacks with Gaza

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has sought to compare the Mumbai attacks with the Israeli strikes on Gaza and what he called the “immense torture” of the Kashmiri people by the Indian government. Speaking in Karachi on Saturday, Mr. Gilani asked the world to “drop its double-standards” and raise its voice against the “killings of innocent Kashmiris and Palestinians”, describing these as “terrorism”, said the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan.

“Innocent Kashmiris are [suffering] immense torture, while children and women are being killed in Gaza. These incidents are not less than Mumbai attacks in severity. Isn’t this terrorism? Then why the world is silent over it?” he was quoted by APP as telling journalists.

While most government functionaries in Pakistan have avoided linking the Mumbai attacks with the Kashmir issue in their public statements, Mr. Gilani told the visiting U.S. official Richard Boucher earlier this week that while Pakistan would not allow its territory to be used by terrorists, India and Pakistan must find a solution to Kashmir, the “root cause”.

He also complained that the international community had “exaggerated” the single incident of the Mumbai attacks and raised a “hue and cry” over it while not speaking up against the killings of nearly 180 people when Benazir Bhutto’s home-coming parade in Karachi was bombed in October 2007.

Though, Mr. Gilani said, the Mumbai attacks were a result of the “failure” of the Indian intelligence apparatus, “as far as it concerns Pakistan, we are prepared to give intelligence co-operation, every kind of co-operation, but India must not try to demoralise us or ridicule us through their media or with their diplomacy.”

Highlighting the Indian failure to prevent the attacks, the Prime Minister, seen as having reasserted his position vis-À-vis President Asif Ali Zardari by firing his National Security Adviser for confirming the Pakistani nationality of the surviving Mumbai gunman to the media, said 10 people were able to take the whole of India hostage.

“So we pray every day for India’s long life because if anything wrong happens there it comes to our account, so in fact we are defending not one but two nations,” he said. He urged the Pakistani media never to think of their country as weak. Pakistan could defend itself with its “highly professional” Army, he said.

Mr. Gilani reiterated that Pakistan wants good relations with India. “We are not in competition with India,” he said.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Gilani equates Mumbai attacks with Gaza
Hamas claims it attacked Israeli air base
Some jobs cannot be outsourced: Obama
Parisians denounce Israel
Obama team’s fears over Pakistan’s n-arms
Jews lead protest
Obama’s mother-in-law will join family in White House

Copyright © 2009, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu