WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump called Wednesday for India and Pakistan to immediately halt their fighting, and offered to help end the worst violence between the nuclear-armed countries in two decades.
“It’s so terrible,” Trump said at the White House. “I get along with both, I know both very well, and I want to see them work it out. I want to see them stop.
“They’ve gone tit-for-tat, so hopefully they can stop now.”
Trump’s comments came as India and Pakistan exchanged heavy artillery fire along their contested frontier, after New Delhi launched deadly missile strikes on its arch-rival.
At least 31 deaths were reported in the fighting, which came two weeks after New Delhi blamed Islamabad for backing an attack on the Indian-run side of disputed Kashmir, which Pakistan denied.
Pakistan has long been a key US military ally but Trump has been keen to build up relations with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whom he hosted at the White House in February.
“We get along with both countries very well, good relationships with both, and I want to see it stop,” Trump said in the Oval Office.
“And if I can do anything to help, I will be there.”
Trump initially played down the crisis as part of old tensions between India and Pakistan — even saying they had been at odds for 1,500 years, despite the two countries only forming after independence from Britain in 1947.
But his administration has scrambled into action in the last 24 hours since the Indian strikes.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to his counterparts from India and Pakistan on Friday, encouraging them to reopen dialogue to “defuse” the situation, the White House said.
Trump tells India and Pakistan to ‘stop’ clashes
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Trump tells India and Pakistan to ‘stop’ clashes
- The US president initially played down the crisis as part of old tensions between India and Pakistan
- His administration has scrambled into action in the last 24 hours since the Indian strikes in Pakistan
Historic Sikh prayer held at Lahore’s Aitchison College gurdwara after nearly 80 years
- Ceremony marks 140th anniversary of colonial-era institution
- Shrine had remained closed since Partition due to absence of Sikh students
ISLAMABAD: A Sikh worship service was held today, Friday, at the historic gurdwara inside Lahore’s Aitchison College, reopening the shrine for prayer nearly eight decades after it fell out of regular use following the 1947 Partition.
Founded in 1886 to educate the sons of royalty and prominent families of undivided Punjab, Aitchison College once served students from Muslim, Hindu and Sikh backgrounds. After Partition, which created Pakistan and India and triggered mass migration along religious lines, Sikh enrollment ended and the gurdwara ceased functioning as an active place of worship, though the college continued to maintain the building.
Friday’s ceremony took place as part of events marking the elite school’s 140th anniversary.
“A historic and emotional Sikh worship service was held at the Gurdwara on the campus of Aitchison College,” the institution said in a statement announcing the ceremony.
The gurdwara was designed by renowned Sikh architect Ram Singh of the then Mayo School of Arts, now the National College of Arts. Its foundation stone was laid in 1910 by Maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala, a former Aitchison student who studied there from 1904 to 1908, and the Patiala royal family supported fundraising for its construction. Completed shortly afterward, it served as a daily prayer space for Sikh pupils attending the school.
About 15 Sikh alumni of Aitchison College are currently living in India and have recalled attending evening prayers at the gurdwara, describing its black-and-white marble flooring and castle-like interior architecture.
The campus also houses other pre-Partition places of worship, including a mosque built in 1900 by the Nawab of Bahawalpur and a Hindu temple whose foundation stone was laid in 1910 by the Maharaja of Darbhanga.
Over the decades, Aitchison College has educated prominent figures from across pre-Partition Punjab and modern South Asia, including former Pakistani prime ministers Imran Khan, Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali and Feroz Khan Noon, as well as Indian cricket captain Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi and members of princely families such as the Maharaja of Patiala.
