ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s foreign office spokesperson on Monday criticized the recent statement by the chief minister of India’s Uttar Pradesh state regarding Sindh, saying that the “highly irresponsible” remarks reflect the leader’s expansionist mindset.
Addressing a convention in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said on Sunday that if Ram Janmabhoomi— a site in Ayodhya believed by Hindus to be the birthplace of Rama— can be taken back after 500 years, then there is no reason why India cannot take back Sindhu, the region around the Indus River in southern Pakistan.
“We condemn the highly irresponsible remarks made by the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, a key member of India’s ruling dispensation and a follower of the bigoted Hindutva ideology, at the National Sindhi Convention in Lucknow,” Foreign Office Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said in a statement.
The site in the northern town of Ayodhya was bitterly contested for decades with both Hindus and Muslims laying claim to it. India’s majority Hindus say the site was holy to them long before Muslim Mughals razed a temple at the spot and built the Babri mosque there in 1528.
A Hindu mob destroyed the mosque in 1992, triggering riots that killed about 2,000 people across India, most of them Muslims.
Baloch condemned Adityanath for using Ram Janmabhoomi’s reclamation as a template for reclaiming Pakistan’s Sindh province.
“Clearly, the Chief Minister’s provocative remarks are inspired by the gratuitous assertion of ‘Akhand Bharat’ (undivided India),” she said.
“These remarks manifest a revisionist and expansionist mindset that seeks to subjugate the identity and culture of not only India’s neighboring countries but also its own religious minorities.”
Baloch urged Indian leaders to resolve disputes with neighboring countries to build a peaceful South Asia instead of nurturing “hegemonic and expansionist ambitions.”
