Imran Chishti, the main culprit behind the Nankana Sahib incident has been arrested under the Anti-Terrorism act. The man, who organized a protest outside Gurdwara Janam Asthan in Nankana Sahib, had threatened to tear down the Gurdwara. In a video footage, which has been released, Imran Chishti, the main culprit has been seen angrily threatening to level the holy site. The police on Sunday acted and arrests Imran Chishti after a public outcry.
Punjab Chief Minister’s focal person on Media Azhar Mashwani tweeted, “The main culprit in #NankanaSahib incident Imran has been arrested. FIR # 6/2020 u/s 295A/290/291/341/506/148/ 149, 6 sound system /7ATA has been registered at Nankana Police Station,”
The incident took place because of an earlier incident of forced conversion case in which six men were booked. In August 2019, Muhammad Ehsan, married a local Sikh girl after her alleged forced conversion. Following, six people were booked and arrested.
Police raided Ehsan’s brother, which turned heated. Imran, the Ehsan’s brother later gathered a mob to protest outside the shrine. The mob turned angry and chanted anti Sikh slogans and threatened to wipe the Sikh community from the town, further vowed ‘not to spare a single Sikh’ and ‘rename Nankana Sahib as Ghulam-e-Mustafa’.
The timing of the incident was intense, as the government was busy focusing on Indian atrocities against Muslims in India. The incident handed Indian media a live weapon to fire it against Pakistan. The controversy sparked all over social media.
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Shireen Mazari, the Human Rights Minister was on a twitter spree against Indian, while PM Khan also regularly tweets against India.
The foreign office took a defensive position following the incident and released a press release stating that the “attempts to paint this incident as a communal issue are patently motivated,”.
Prime Minister Imran Khan tweeted multiple tweets and declared the incident “against his vision”.
“The major difference between the condemnable Nankana incident and the ongoing attacks across India on Muslims and other minorities is this: the former is against my vision and will find zero tolerance and protection from the government, including police and judiciary,” PM said in his tweet adding that, “In contrast, Modi’s RSS vision supports minorities oppression and the targeted attacks against Muslims are part of this agenda. RSS goons conducting public lynchings, Muslims being violated by mobs are all not only supported by Modi Govt but Indian police leads anti-Muslim attacks,”
Later, on the instructions of the PM Ijaz Shah, the Interior Minister reached Nakana Sahib to hold a press conference and accused “anti-state elements” responsible behind the attack.
Meanwhile, when Pakistan has got India on something tangible, these kind of incidents would contribute to weaken the war of narratives. Moreover, it is pertinent to know that the prime culprit of the incident has been arrested, but the government earlier turned deaf ears to the calls of action against the perpetrators of religiously motivated hate incidents. All government machineries including Interior and Foreign Ministries refused to acknowledge the incident at first. Later, when the videos of mob attack had gone viral on social media PM himself took action. This, however, would harm the Pakistan’s bid against Indian state violence against Kashmiris and Muslims across India, especially when Indian government is searching incidents like these to breathe some air.
