This is regarding the front-page story “Tit-for-tat attack sends Pak inmate into coma.” It’s election time in India and Pakistan. The leaders of both these countries are trying hard to persuade the voters by spreading hate. No wonder what is going to be the impact of their hate politics on the citizens of their countries?
Unfortunately, selecting Ajmal Qasab and Afzal Guru for execution from a long list of condemned ones is an example of this hate politics.
The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government executed them to please Hindu hard-liners and corner the Bharatiya Janata Party in the next elections.
Regrettably, Pakistani politicians too are playing the politics of hate without thinking of its consequences. They enacted a tragic play in one of their prisons. And at the end, a precious life succumbed to fatal injuries, leaving a tearful wife and a daughter.
Meanwhile, in an apparent retaliatory attack for Sarabjit Singh’s death, a Pakistani prisoner lodged in an Indian jail was attacked brutally. His condition is said to be very critical as he is in coma.
One must condemn Sarabjit Singh’s death. One must also condemn the government of Pakistan for failing to provide protection to Sarabjit in the prison.
At the same time the deadly attack on Sanaullah Haq in a Jammu jail must also be denounced. As political parties are playing dirty politics in order to achieve electoral gains in the coming elections, it is the people of both these countries who suffer at the end of the day. Leaders know how to exploit every situation for their political gains. Let us wait and see how the people of both the countries react and elect their leaders in the coming election. Are they going to open a new chapter by voting those leaders who will have courage to speak and think in terms of national interest with utmost degree of conscience, reason and principle, no matter what party they represent? Or are they going to select leaders who will continue playing the politics of hate. — Mohammed Shahid Kamal, Khamis Mushait
Tit-for-tat attack
