NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD: India and Pakistan are quarreling over reports of an alleged kidnapping and religious conversion of two Hindu girls in mostly Muslim Pakistan last week.
The spat began on Sunday when India’s Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted that she had asked the country’s high commissioner in Islamabad to send a report on a news article on the allegations, a rare public intervention by a top Indian official in the neighbor’s domestic affairs.
Pakistani police said they had registered a complaint of kidnapping and robbery by the teenagers’ parents and that arrests could be made on Monday.
Pakistan’s Information and Broadcasting Minister Fawad Chaudhry said the country was “totally behind the girls,” but asked Hindu-majority India to look after its own minority Muslims.
“Madam Minister, I am happy that in the Indian administration we have people who care for minority rights in other countries,” Chaudhry replied to Swaraj’s tweet.
“I sincerely hope that your conscience will allow you to stand up for minorities at home as well. Gujarat and Jammu must weigh heavily on your soul.”
Later in a press conference on Sunday, he referred to religious riots in Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat in 2002 during which more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed. In Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, Pakistan accuses India of human rights violations, a charge New Delhi denies.
An Indian foreign ministry source cited three more instances of forceful marriages of Hindu or Sikh women in Pakistan in the past two years and said that the government had raised “intimidation of Sikhs, Hindus, and desecration of their places of worship” with Pakistan on various occasions.
The Indian government run by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party will seek a second term in a general election starting next month. Modi has taken a tougher stand toward Pakistan in the past five years.
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India, Pakistan spar over alleged religious conversion of Hindu girls
India, Pakistan spar over alleged religious conversion of Hindu girls
- In Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, Pakistan accuses India of human rights violations
- Narendra Modi has taken a tougher stand toward Pakistan in the past five years
UK eyes Russia sanctions after Navalny poisoning findings
- ‘We continue to look at coordinated action, including increasing sanctions on the Russian regime’
- Opposition leader Alexei Navalny was killed by dart-frog toxin in a Russian prison
LONDON: Britain will consider “increasing sanctions” against Russia following findings from five European states that opposition leader Alexei Navalny was killed by dart-frog toxin in a Russian prison, UK foreign minister Yvette Cooper said Sunday.
“We continue to look at coordinated action, including increasing sanctions on the Russian regime,” Cooper told the BBC from the Munich Security Conference, where the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden announced findings that the Russian state was a prime suspect for poisoning Navalny two years ago.
Navalny, a staunch critic of President Vladimir Putin, died in a Russian prison in mysterious conditions on February 16, 2024, while serving a 19-year sentence.
The five European countries on Saturday said that a deadly toxin known as epibatidine, found in Ecuadorian dart frogs, was found on laboratory analyzes of samples from his body.
Cooper told Sky News that the toxin can also be produced synthetically.
“We do know that the Russian regime has had possession of this particular chemical,” the British foreign minister said.
“Russia claimed that Navalny died of natural causes. But given the toxicity of epibatidine and reported symptoms, poisoning was highly likely the cause of his death,” the European countries said in a joint statement Saturday.
Britain’s foreign office said separately that “only the Russian state had the means, motive and opportunity to deploy this lethal toxin.” It added: “We hold it (Russia) responsible for his death.”
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer hailed Navalny’s “courage in the face of tyranny” in a social media post, slamming “Putin’s murderous intent.”
Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman and Moscow’s embassy in London dismissed the Western report.
The Kremlin has never given a full explanation for Navalny’s death, only saying he fell ill and died suddenly after taking a walk in his prison colony.
Putin said in 2024 that Navalny had “passed away.” The opposition leader died shortly before a presidential election in Russia.
On Saturday, Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnya, said it was now “science-proven” that the Kremlin opponent had been murdered, two years after his death was announced during the same annual conference in Germany.
Navalnaya last September said that laboratory analysis of smuggled biological samples found that her husband was killed by poisoning.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot paid “tribute” to Navalny after the findings.
“We now know that Vladimir Putin is prepared to use biological weapons against his own people to remain in power,” Barrot said in a post on X.
“We continue to look at coordinated action, including increasing sanctions on the Russian regime,” Cooper told the BBC from the Munich Security Conference, where the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden announced findings that the Russian state was a prime suspect for poisoning Navalny two years ago.
Navalny, a staunch critic of President Vladimir Putin, died in a Russian prison in mysterious conditions on February 16, 2024, while serving a 19-year sentence.
The five European countries on Saturday said that a deadly toxin known as epibatidine, found in Ecuadorian dart frogs, was found on laboratory analyzes of samples from his body.
Cooper told Sky News that the toxin can also be produced synthetically.
“We do know that the Russian regime has had possession of this particular chemical,” the British foreign minister said.
“Russia claimed that Navalny died of natural causes. But given the toxicity of epibatidine and reported symptoms, poisoning was highly likely the cause of his death,” the European countries said in a joint statement Saturday.
Britain’s foreign office said separately that “only the Russian state had the means, motive and opportunity to deploy this lethal toxin.” It added: “We hold it (Russia) responsible for his death.”
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer hailed Navalny’s “courage in the face of tyranny” in a social media post, slamming “Putin’s murderous intent.”
Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman and Moscow’s embassy in London dismissed the Western report.
The Kremlin has never given a full explanation for Navalny’s death, only saying he fell ill and died suddenly after taking a walk in his prison colony.
Putin said in 2024 that Navalny had “passed away.” The opposition leader died shortly before a presidential election in Russia.
On Saturday, Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnya, said it was now “science-proven” that the Kremlin opponent had been murdered, two years after his death was announced during the same annual conference in Germany.
Navalnaya last September said that laboratory analysis of smuggled biological samples found that her husband was killed by poisoning.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot paid “tribute” to Navalny after the findings.
“We now know that Vladimir Putin is prepared to use biological weapons against his own people to remain in power,” Barrot said in a post on X.
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