Imran Khan accuses West of ignoring Kashmir

Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that the West is ignoring the atrocities in Kashmir with hundreds and thousands of Kashmiris been killed by the Indian troops.

“This is such a big issue in the western world as why are the people of Kashmir ignored,” the prime minister said in an interview with Jonathan Swan of Axios on HBO aired on Monday.

The prime minister said the Kashmir issue was “much more relevant” where 800,000 Indian troops had literally put the nine million Kashmiris under jail.

“Why is this not an issue?” he said, referring to the apathy of the West towards the plight of Kashmiri people facing the humanitarian crisis for decades.

On Islamophobia, the prime minister termed a “big communication gap” between the Islamic world and the western societies as the main reason.

He said after 9/11, the term ‘Islamic terrorism’ was coined that misguided people in the West who started believing that Islam led to terrorism.

He pointed that with involvement of a few Muslims in terrorist activities, the entire 1.3 billion Muslim community became the target.

Asked about “doing vastly better than the United States” on COVID-19, the prime minister said partial lockdown coupled with comprehensive data analysis helped his government keep the pandemic in control.

Smart lockdown was the “best decision” to cope with the situation, he added.

Imran Khan recalled that with people in Spain and Italy ending up in hospitals as COVID-19 raged through Europe, there was a big temptation by the politicians from Opposition for a total lockdown. However, he said, he opted for smart lockdown given the problems of poor.

He mentioned that an effective working of the Command and Control Centre with daily data monitoring and input by provinces, army, doctors and health specialists helped the government handle the situation.