Oh my god.
Pakistan’s response to India abrogating Article 370 has been one-long stand-up comedy act which gets better and better every day.
Not only does a country that has its bigotry written into the constitution feel the need to lecture a democratic sovereign how to behave with minorities, its response on various international fora vacillates between threatening nuclear war (a bluff that has been called out) to hitting their own cash-strapped economy by adding 30 minutes of unproductivity every Friday.
It has included Javed Miandad (Mumbai blast mastermind Dawood Ibrahim’s in-law) literally threatening India with a sword at the LoC, while actors urged the Pak Army to launch a limited war!
Islamabad has also taken the fake news route to try and spread disinformation, but sometimes it just leads to hilarious consequences.
While a Pak senator asked UNO (the card game) to help Kashmiris, former Pak Envoy Abdul Basit went a step further and asked the world to ‘pray for Johnny Sins’.
Abdul Basit, who earlier claimed that Shobha De wrote a column about Kashmir after being persuaded by him, a claim De vigorously rubbished, retweeted a handle claiming Sins was a Kashmiri ‘blinded by pellets’.
The problem – the screenshot was from one of Sins’ many videos. The former Pak envoy to India was roundly mocked for his faux paus. Even though he deleted the RT, we all know the internet never forgets.
Of course we shouldn't be surprised, given that Pakistan has precedent in mislabelling images, but that's the nature of the game when trying to drive false narratives - one tends to forget their own lies.
A couple of years ago, Pakistan's top diplomat - Maleeha Lodhi - shared a picture at the UNSC claiming it was 'atrocities committed by India in Kashmir'. The problem - the picture was from Palestine.
Former Pakistani high commissioner to India Abdul Basit, mistakes Johnny Sins for a Kashmiri man who lost vision from pellet. Unreal times these, really. pic.twitter.com/9h1X8V8TKF
— Naila Inayat नायला इनायत (@nailainayat) September 2, 2019
According to Former Pakistan's high commissioner to India Abdul Basit, Johnny Sins, a Kashmiri, has lost his vision from pellet gun.
— Traveler (@pks7272) September 2, 2019
So now johnny sins is new victim of pellet in #Kashmir
Diplomats ho to Aisay ho, foreign policy ke lo** laga de #Pakistan #نیبنیازیگٹھجوڑ pic.twitter.com/RJZBiovGAw
Former Pakistan High Commissioner to India "Abdul Basit" tweets image of adult movie star Johnny Sins claiming he is Yousuf from Anantnag #Kashmir blinded by pellet. @JohnnySins has been a plumber, a doctor, a teacher, an astronaut but Pak reduced him to a stone-pelter. pic.twitter.com/k1rrcnDyOB
— jainendra joshi (@Jainendra_Joshi) September 2, 2019
How Pak has provided comic relief post Article 370 abrogation:
Forget penning op-ed, Imran can’t tell the time
How Kashmir Hour angered Pakistanis
Dawood’s in-law Javed Miandad threatens India with a sword at LoC
Pak actor demands ‘limited war with India’
Twitter mocks Imran’s nuclear bluff
1. Shobha De rejected Basit's claims
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In an interview to a Pak blogger, Basit says it was a challenge for him to find an Indian journalist in ‘mainland India’ who write an article in a mainstream newspaper for ‘self-determination of Kashmir’.
He goes on to say that Shobha De’s article was met with such fury that she didn’t step out in public for two months. He also said that India had more freedom of speech, pointing out the debates saying he was very ‘impressed’ by Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari’s speeches.
Shobha De however vehemently rejected the allegations claiming she hadn’t met Basit only once in 2019 at the Jaipur Literature fest where he intruded upon a publishing party.
Columnist Shobhaa De on rubbished the claims made by former Pakistan envoy to India Abdul Basit that he had influenced her to write the 2016 article where she "advocated plebiscite" in Kashmir in the aftermath of Burhan Wani's death.
Speaking to ANI, De said that the only time she ever met Basit was during the Jaipur Literature Festival in January 2019, when the former envoy attempted to make a conversation at a "publishing party" but was "almost as good as asked to leave".
2. 'Dangerous and malicious statement'
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"The only time I met him, or rather he came and imposed himself and intruded into a small group was in January of this year at the Jaipur lit fest at a publishing party. He came and joined a small group, attempted a conversation, was snubbed and almost as good as asked to leave," said De.
"In those three minutes, yes, he tried to bring in various issues but the only issue that actually chased him away was China. That was the first and last time I ever encountered this man," she added.
In an interview with a Pakistani blogger Farhan Virk, Basit had said that he had managed to influence "prominent" columnist Shobhaa De to write the 2016 article titled "Burhan Wani is dead but he'll live on till we find out what Kashmir really wants".
De called Basit's statement "dangerous, malicious, and unfair to anybody who believes in the truth", adding that she is "deeply insulted and upset that he could dare to say something like that about a person who has built her career on credibility and positive good journalism for over 40 years.
3. No point talking to terrorists: S Jaishankar
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India’s External Affairs Minister and former top diplomat categorically dismissed Imran Khan’s column in the New York Times saying he 'didn't have time to read Khan’s op-ed' but said that there was no point talking to a country that ‘openly practices terrorism’.
In the same interview to US media outlet Politico, Jaishankar justified the communication blockade in Kashmir stating: “How do I cut off communications between the terrorists and their masters on the one hand, but keep the internet open for other people? I would be delighted to know.”
