Punjab CM Amarinder Singh blasts Navjot Singh Sidh for Pakistan Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa hug

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said on Sunday that it was wrong for his Cabinet colleague Navjot Singh Sidhu to hug Pakistan Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa at a time when Indian soldiers are being martyred on the border. 

Sidhu was already facing criticism from BJP for his action during his “friend” Imran Khan’s swearing-in as Pakistan’s Prime Minister on Saturday. 

“It was wrong for him to have shown the affection. The man should understand that our soldiers are being killed every day by Pakistan’s Army. My own regiment lost one Major and two jawans a few months ago,” said Singh. 

“To say that ‘I don’t know General Bajwa’... it is written on the uniform. It was Bajwa who gave the order to pull the trigger.” 

He, however, said the cricketer-turned-politician’s decision to attend the ceremony in Pakistan was his personal and he perhaps did not know the person seated next to him was the PoK President. On Saturday, BJP called Sidhu’s visit “no less than a crime”.

Earlier, Sidhu defended himself. “If you’re invited as a guest of honour somewhere, you sit wherever you are asked to. I was sitting somewhere else but they asked me to sit there,” he said on sitting next to PoK President Masood Khan in the front row. 

“If someone (Bajwa) comes to me and says that we belong to the same culture and we’ll open Kartarpur border on Guru Nanak Dev’s 550th Prakash Parv, what else I could do?” he said, justifying his hug. 

(With ANI inputs)