NEW DELHI: India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party staged a nationwide protest on Saturday over the “butcher of Gujarat” epithet Pakistan’s top envoy used against Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of a UN meeting.

Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India are nuclear-armed neighbors and archrivals, who gained independence from British colonial rule in 1947.

In a war of words after the UN session on terrorism in New York earlier this week, India’s foreign minister, S. Jaishankar accused Pakistan of being the “epicenter of terrorism.” In response, his counterpart, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari hit back saying as Pakistan had lost far more lives to terrorism than India, which sought to conflate Muslims and terrorists in both countries.

He told Jaishankar that “Osama bin Laden is dead, (but) the butcher of Gujarat lives and he is the prime minister of India.”

Bhutto-Zardari was referring to Modi, who was accused of not doing enough to prevent the killings of nearly 1,000 Muslims during 2002 riots in India’s western state of Gujarat, where he was chief minister.

The remark sparked outrage among Indian government officials, with foreign ministry spokesperson, Arindam Bagchi, saying it was a “new low even for Pakistan.”

On Friday evening, BJP party workers held a demonstration in front of the Pakistani High Commission embassy in New Delhi. On Saturday, in rallies across the country, they burnt the Pakistani flag and Bhutto-Zardari’s effigy.

“India cannot accept the remarks of the Pakistani foreign minister and that’s why we have held demonstrations at different places,” Rakesh Tripathi, BJP spokesperson in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, told Arab News.

“This low-level comment against the Indian prime minister is not acceptable to us. As a democratic country we have burnt the effigies of the Pakistani leader to register our anger. This protest took place everywhere in India.”

Tripathi added that the Pakistani foreign minister’s remark would affect attempts to normalize ties.

“India has always taken the initiative to improve ties with Pakistan. But we cannot accept such wordings against the Indian Prime Minister,” he said.

Sudheendra Kulkarni, political commentator and advisor to former Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was of a similar view.

“Bilawal Bhutto should have been self-restrained in referring to the Indian prime minister. Nothing can be achieved by India and Pakistan maligning each other,” he said.

“The two governments should immediately work to reduce the temperature, and begin to improve relations which have remained frozen for a long time.”

But according to him, it was India, which next year is going to host two major international summits, that could give a good example.

“India is going to host G20 and also SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) summits in 2023. Both India and Pakistan are members of SCO. Therefore, India has a responsibility to engage Pakistan constructively and thereby give leadership to South Asia,” Kulkarni, a former BJP leader, told Arab News.

He added that Modi had used Sanskrit phrase “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” (“The World is One Family”) as the motto for the Indian-hosted G20 summit.

“The concept of global family should begin from the neighborhood, that is South Asia should be regarded as one civilizational family. Unfortunately, there is a gap between India’s slogan and its actions to promote cooperation,” he said.

“India has a responsibility to engage Pakistan constructively and thereby give leadership to South Asia.”