ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday said India was using diversionary tactics to distract public attention from plight of minorities at home.

Indian Charge d’Affaires Gaurav Ahluwalia was summoned to the Foreign Office (FO) to receive a protest over a statement by India’s Ministry of External Affairs that depicted an incident in Nankana Sahib as violence against the Sikhs and desecration of one of their holy sites.

DG (SA & SAARC) Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri, an FO statement said, denounced Delhi’s motivated and mischievous allegations of “attack”, “vandalism” and “desecration” at the holy Gurdwara Nankana Sahib and “targeted killing” of a Pakistani Sikh youth in Peshawar. This, he told the Indian diplomat, was part of India’s desperate attempts to divert attention from “the continuing state terrorism in Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IOJ&K) and systematic discrimination against minorities in India”.

The Indian diplomat was told that the government was committed to protecting the rights of minorities, with zero tolerance against any discrimination being a constitutional obligation. He reminded Mr Ahluwalia that Pakistan’s Constitution guarantees equal rights to all its citizens.

It should be recalled that Prime Minister Imran Khan had, while denouncing the incident, said it was against his “vision and will find zero tolerance and protection from the government including police and judiciary”.

Mr Chaudhri said that instead of pointing fingers towards others, India should strive to protect its own minorities and their places of worship, including mosques, from repeated instances of desecration, hate crimes and mob lynching.

The controversy began on Friday, when a tea stall altercation in Nankana was propagated over social media as an incident of communal violence against Sikhs of the town, which hosts Gurdwara Nankana Sahib, the birthplace of Sikhism founder Baba Guru Nanak.

Published in Dawn, January 8th, 2020