Team India’s refusal to travel to Pakistan for the Asia Cup 2023 has created a huge tussle between the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). While BCCI is firm on the decision of not travelling to Pakistan, Pakistani board officials and ex-cricketers are resorting to their usual tactics of threats and blandishments.

Bharat’s former India off-spinner Harbhajan Singh recently claimed that Bharat should not travel to Pakistan as it is not safe to play there. Former Pakistan captain and Asia Lions skipper Shahid Afridi has now claimed that the Pakistan team in the past received a threat from a Mumbai-based man but they still decided to travel to Bharat.

While speaking to the media on the sidelines of the Legends League Cricket (LLC) 2023, Afridi was asked how matters will improve if there is constant retaliation. “Who is saying no to Asia Cup? India is saying no,” Afridi stated.

He further said, “Every Prime Minister in Pakistan wants to have good relations with India. I request PM Modi to let us have cricket with India, let both teams and players enjoy cricket. Fans in both nations want to watch India vs Pakistan matches.”

Afridi also claimed that Pakistan team had once faced a threat from an Indian, who he did not wish to name, but yet the Pakistan government had kept differences aside to send the team to Bharat.

“Aap Indian team ko bheje toh sahi, humlog sar aankhon par rakhenge (You just send the Indian team to Pakistan and we will welcome them with great pleasure). Before this, an Indian from Mumbai, won’t take his name, had threatened Pakistan that they won’t be allowed in India. But we kept all aside and our government had taken it up as a responsibility and Pakistan team did go to India. So threats should not ruin our relationship. Threats will remain,” he said.

But what Harbhajan and Afridi are both conveniently forgetting is that Bharat’s opposition to playing in Pakistan is not just due to security concerns, which are definitely there.

Bharat’s position of cutting down bilateral ties with Pakistan is due to 2 main reasons:

1.) Pakistan’s incessant sponsorship of cross-border terrorism and crime

2.) Pakistan’s brutal persecution of its Hindu & Sikh minorities, which is nothing less than a gradual genocide.

The constant stream of hateful rhetoric against Bharat’s PM, government and society by Pakistani government representatives, just confirms to all Bharatiyas that Pakistan is an Islamofascist, rogue nation that does not deserve to be treated with respect.

We know how Islamic supremacists like Afridi (who can’t even stand Hindu worship shown in a TV serial) can change colors when needed. We know how Afridi and our elites have been fooling ordinary Bharatiyas through scripted bonhomie of sporting & cultural events, while Pakistan persecutes its Hindus.

Does Afridi know about Chanda Maharaj, a minor child abducted from Hyderabad, Sindh, raped & forced into conversion-nikah, who is now rotting in a ‘safe house’ despite medical test showing she is minor?

At least 1000 girls like Chanda are abducted and forced into sex slavery like this every year in Sindh alone. Even married Hindu women with kids are not spared. Your govt-mullahs refuse to pass laws to ban these forced conversions as ‘it would be against Islam’.

But then again, a bigot who believes that “They (Hindus/Indians) cannot have a pure & large heart like Allah has given us Muslims” cannot be expected to understand the pain of someone like Chanda Maharaj’s mother. You need a Dharmic consciousness for that.

People like Shahid Afridi and other Pakistani cricketers like Shoaib Akhtar (an ardent believer of Ghazwa-e-Hind, a prediction in hadith of ‘Hindustan’s conquest by Islam before the end times’) have grown accustomed to getting away with hypocrisy.

They believe it is their right to look down upon Hindu ‘kafirs’ & ‘malauns’ (cursed by Allah) on odd days, and then talk of ‘peace & harmony’ and #CricketDiplomacy on even days. But they alone are not to blame – India’s Hinduphobic and deracinated elites have enabled them.

These elites have counted on short public memory & their hold over media narrative & education to obfuscate the radical Islamism that is at the root of Pakistani society. They wait for a few years to pass after a major terror attack and then wheel out the ‘Aman ki Asha’ circus.

Terror and criminal masterminds like Hafeez Saeed, Dawood Ibrahim, Maulana Masood Azhar operate freely from Pakistan with Pak Army-ISI backing. Pakistani govt at the highest level slanders Bharat at every opportunity, yet we are expected to forget all this if any Pak General utters ‘ceasefire’ or a Pak minister talks vaguely of ‘dialgoue and trade’?

This charade ends now. With the advent of social media and democratization of discourse, elites can no longer control the flow of information and take us for a ride.

BCCI & PMO must ensure our team does not travel to Pakistan. Even in multi-lateral tournaments, we must play Pakistan only with black armbands to register our protest against the institutionalized atrocities on Pakistani Hindus.