A definite sign that the Aman ki Asha circus has rolled into town is increased chatter around Bharat-Pakistan cricket. And lo and behold – “Relations between India and Pakistan can improve because of cricket”, former Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi said recently.
This has come amid speculation of the two countries playing a short bilateral T20I series this year, which would be the first since 2012/13. Afridi had more to say from the cliched script which we in Bharat used to routinely hear in the 2000s (after every Pakistan-sponsored terror attack, a common occurrence in that decade) –
“Cricket between Pakistan and India is very important. Sports should be kept away from politics. Relations between the two countries can improve because of cricket…I have said this before as well, Indian cricketers enjoy coming to Pakistan. You can improve relationships through sports but if you don’t want to improve them then they will remain the same way,” Afridi told Cricket Pakistan.
Ever since both countries reiterated their commitment to the 2003 ceasefire agreement along LoC (Line of Control) in late February, the usual suspects have been beating the peace drums and flooding media with ‘source-based’ stories about a ‘thaw’ in relations, and torturing statements by officials of both countries to draw desired conclusions.
As far as bilateral cricket with Pakistan goes, at the moment this sounds like all smoke and no fire. A report in Pakistan’s Jang newspaper on Wednesday quoted a Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) official as saying that their cricket board had been asked to “be ready” for a series with Bharat, though ‘no one from Bharat has made any commitment to the series’.
Both countries cricket boards have said they have no knowledge of any such development. However, this did not stop the mainstream media in Bharat to go to town with this ‘news’!
One hopes that authorities in Bharat move quickly to squelch these rumors, because there is nothing, absolutely nothing, to show that Pakistan has moved even an inch to give up its use of terror as an instrument of state policy. Pak-armed terrorists are still active in Jammu & Kashmir, Islamic terror cells are being busted all over the country, and Pakistani embassy staff was recently expelled for spying.
The Pakistan PM has crossed all limits with his frequent rants against Hindus and RSS. But most importantly, Pakistan’s brutal persecution of its minority Hindu population is increasingly become apparent to the entire world, especially the abduction, rape, forced conversion and marriage of minor Hindu and Christian girls.Pakistani state institutions and its courts have been thoroughly exposed for their Islamo-fascist mindset.
The tears haven’t even tried for the hapless parents of the latest such victim – 13-year-old Kaveeta Oad, and here we have vultures ready to resume cricketing ties and give a clean chit to such pure evil.
And what about their cricketers? Well, for all their sweet-talk about ‘improving relations’, driven in no small part by their desire to profit from the financial bonanza that a cricket series with Bharat brings for other countries, the anti-Hindu and anti-Bharat bigotry has proven difficult to mask in the digital age.
Afridi once said on a Pakistani TV show that “They (Hindus) can never have large or pure hearts like what Allah has given to us Muslims”. In another TV interview, he not only disrespectfully mocked the sacred Hindu ritual of performing aarti, but also boasted that he had destroyed his television as his child imitated this ritual after seeing a show on Star Plus.
During a visit to Pakistan Occupied Jammu & Kashmir, Afridi has also made anti-Bharat and anti-Modi comments. While hankering for lucrative bilateral series with Bharat, this supremacist and mediocre cricketer has also gloated about ‘smashing’ Bharat on the cricket field so many times that Bharatiya players ‘begged forgiveness’, he claimed.
The bigot Afridi is so delusional that he claimed in his auto-biography that, “India has not reciprocated Pakistan’s overtures”, and that Pakistani leaders are more responsible than Bharat’s.
Reflective of the medieval Islamist mindset of most of his countrymen, the misogynist Afridi says that for “religious and social reasons” his 4 daughters are allowed to play only indoor sports, but not outdoor sports such as cricket, because “As a Musalman, I know the limits for women.”
And Afridi is not alone. If Imran Khan is symbolic of how a suave, worldly-wise Muslim can turn into an orthodox mullah obsessed with establishing superiority of Islam and supporting terror groups like Taliban, most Pakistani cricketers exhibit this virus of Islamo-fascism.
Cricketer Sohail Tanvir once lashed out at Hindus when Pakistani cricketers were not allowed to participate in the IPL 2010 auction due to Pakistani inaction on 26/11 terror accused, saying “Hinduon ki zahaniyat hi aisi hai,” meaning, Hindus are of such (vindictive) nature.
In 2014, Pakistani cricketer Ahmed Shehzad was caught on camera telling Sri Lankan player Tillakaratne Dilshan “if you are a non-Muslim and you turn Muslim, no matter whatever you do in your life, straight to heaven….else be ready for the fire.”
Even Shoaib Akhtar, a proponent of humanity uniting to fight Covid-19, is a believer of ‘Ghazwa-e-Hind’ theory, an Islamic prophecy about a Muslim conquest of Bharat before the end times!
The bottomline is clear – Bharat must avoid any deep engagement with Pakistan till there is clear and sustained evidence of it ending the genocidal persecution of its Hindu minority and officially abandoning its ‘bleed with 1000 cuts’ jihadi policy against Bharat. All this chatter about ‘thaw in relations’ is probably just a result of the Biden administration’s desire to quickly withdraw US forces from Afghanistan (they have set a deadline of 1 May) and their dependence on Pakistani forces, which ironically have armed and harbored the very same Taliban that US forces are fighting.
We must not lose our heads and do anything which grants legitimacy to this terrorist nation that is a threat to world peace.
(With IANS inputs)
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