Indian BJP members protest Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s statement

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, NEW DELHI – A group of members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India’s ruling party, burned a doll imitating the figure of Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Saturday (17 /12/2022).

The action was taken after Zardari was embroiled in a war of words with the foreign secretary India S Jaishankar at the UN.

The burning of a doll resembling Zardari takes place in Bhubaneshwar. In their action, masses of BJP members also waved their party’s banner shouting slogans. The burning of the Zardari dolls is said to have taken place in Amritsar and Ranchi.

On Friday (16/12/2022), hundreds of BJP members staged a protest outside the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi. They condemned Zardari’s remarks at the United Nations.

On the same day, India’s Foreign Ministry also protested Zardari’s comments. They also insinuate that “Pakistan terrorism” must be stopped.

This week at the United Nations, India’s Foreign Minister S Jaishankar tell Pakistan that they are trying to be good neighbours.

Between his statements, S Jaishankar called Pakistan a “center of terrorism”. The statement does Bilawal Bhutto Zardari inflamed.

Zardari then hit back at S Jaishankar’s comments by calling Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi a ‘butcher of Gujarat’.

The term refers to the sectarian riots that killed over 1,000 people in Gujarat in 2002.

The majority of those killed were Muslims. At the time of the incident, Modi was Chief Minister of Gujarat State. Modi has been accused of turning a blind eye to the deadly incident.

India-Pakistan relations are vulnerable to tensions. Since independence from Britain 75 years ago, the two countries have been involved in several wars.

As countries that both possess nuclear weapons, the rocky relationship between New Delhi and Islamabad often elicits an international response.