Narendra Modi compared to Osama bin Laden as India and Pakistan exchange bitter war of words

Ministers of two rival neighbours accuse each other in a war of words over issue of terrorism

India and Pakistan’s ministers exchanged strong words at the United Nations Security Council on Thursday as the representatives from the two rival neighbours traded accusations on supporting terror groups in the region.

Pakistan’s Bilawal Bhutto Zardari lashed out at his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar in New York on Thursday and said: “[I want to tell India] that Osama bin Laden is dead, but the butcher of Gujarat lives and he is the Prime Minister of India.”

“He (PM Modi) was banned from entering this country until he became the Prime Minister. This is the Prime Minister of the RSS and the Foreign Minister of the RSS. What is the RSS? The RSS takes inspiration from Hitler’s ‘SS’,” Mr Bhutto said.

Mr Bhutto Zardari’s comments were an apparent reference to the 2002 Gujarat riots in India when prime minister Narendra Modi was chief minister of the western state.

According to official estimates, 1,180 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in the widespread communal riots.

Earlier this year, India’s Supreme Court dismissed a plea challenging the findings of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) report on the riots, giving Mr Modi and 62 other senior government officials a clean chit from accusations that the government did not take measures to stop the riots.

Mr Modi had been denied a visa to the US after the 2002 riots, but the country gave him one before he became India’s prime minister.

On Friday, India lashed out in even more severe remarks at the Pakistani minister by terming his “uncivilised” remarks a “new low” and called the day of 16 December 1971, when the Pakistani army in Dhaka surrendered, leading to the creation of Bangladesh.

The country’s foreign affairs ministry said this was “a direct result of the genocide unleashed by Pakistani rulers against ethnic Bengalis and Hindus”.

“Pakistan FM’s uncivilised outburst seems to be the result of Pakistan's increasing inability to use terrorists and their proxies,” the statement added.

Mr Bhutto Zardari’s comments came after his Indian counterpart lashed out at Pakistan for raising the contentious issue of Kashmir in the UN.

“The question of justifying what the world regards as unacceptable should not even arise. That certainly applies to state sponsorship of cross-border terrorism. Nor can hosting Osama bin Laden and attacking a neighbouring parliament serve as credentials to sermonise before this council,” Mr Jaishankar said on Wednesday.

“In terms of what they [Pakistan] are saying, the truth is everybody, the world today, sees them as the epicentre of terrorism,” he said and added that despite a “brain fog of two-and-a-half years of Covid”, the world “has not forgotten where does terrorism, you know, who has their fingerprints over a lot of activities in the region and beyond the region”.

Later, in response to a question by a Pakistani journalist at the Security Council, Mr Jaishankar said questions on terror should be posed to Pakistani ministers, reported The Indian Express.

“You know, you’re asking the wrong minister when you say how long will we do this? Because it is the Ministers of Pakistan who will tell you how long Pakistan intends to practice terrorism,” he said.

While the two nuclear armed neighbours routinely accuse each other of targeting the other, tensions have been especially high since a flashpoint of violence in February 2019, which culminated in Pakistan shooting down an Indian fighter jet and capturing its pilot.

Ties between the two countries have virtually been in a cold storage, especially after India revoked the special status for the Jammu and Kashmir region in 2019, outraging Pakistan, which also lays claim to the Himalayan territory.