Washington: Author Fatima Bhutto, the granddaughter of former Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, asked Wednesday the Imran Khan government to release an Indian Air Force pilot captured after an air combat.
Pilot Abhinandan Varthaman was captured Wednesday after he ejected safely from his MiG 21 Bison aircraft but landed across the Line of Control.
India has demanded immediate and safe return of the Wing Commander Varthaman, who was taken into custody by Pakistani army following a fierce engagement between air forces of the two sides along the Line of Control.
“I and many other young Pakistanis have called upon our country to release the captured Indian pilot as a gesture of our commitment to peace, humanity and dignity,” Bhutto, 36, wrote in an op-ed in the ‘New York Times’.
“We have spent a lifetime at war. I do not want to see Pakistani soldiers die. I do not want to see Indian soldiers die. We cannot be a sub-continent of orphans,” said Bhutto, a writer who is also niece of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
“My generation of Pakistanis has fought for the right to speak, and we are not afraid to lend our voices to that most righteous cause: peace,” added the daughter of Murtaza Bhutto, son of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
Fatima stated Pakistan’s recent history was bloody and no one has suffered more violence than its own citizens.
“But our long history with military dictatorships and experience of terrorism and uncertainty means that my generation of Pakistanis has no tolerance, no appetite, for jingoism or war,” asserted the author who is related to two persons who have been Prime Ministers of Pakistan.
“I have never seen my country at peace with its neighbour. But never before have I seen a war played out between two nuclear-armed states with Twitter accounts,” she added.
Wednesday afternoon, #saynotowar hashtag began to trend in Pakistan, before hitting the worldwide number one spot on Twitter.
PTI