Pakistan pays tribute to late Indian leader
Pakistan’s new PM Imran Khan says ‘we stand with India in this difficult time’
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Pakistani leaders and officials vividly remembered the attempts to improve the India-Pakistan relationship by statesman Atal Bihari Vajpayee, as they offered condolences on the death of the former Indian prime minister.
Imran Khan, Pakistan’s newly elected prime ministerin-waiting, said Vajpayee’s efforts for peace between the two nations would always be remembered. He expressed “immense sadness at the loss of such a towering political figure from the subcontinent” and said “he shares India’s sorrow in their hour of grief”. Khan, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman, added: “There can be political differences but the desire for peace remains present across the border,” the PTI leader said. “We stand with India in this difficult time.”
The Pakistan Foreign Office (FO) also paid glowing tributes to the three-time prime minister of India and a multi-talented politician who died at age 93. “The government and people of Pakistan extend their heartfelt condolences to his family and to the government and people of India,” it stated.
Man of peace
Pakistan’s acting Law and Information Minister, Syed Zafar Ali, is expected to travel to New Delhi to represent Pakistan and pay respects to the late leader. Vajpayee was acknowledged as a sincere peacemaker by Pakistan’s mainstream newspapers and TV channels. On social media, Pakistanis remembered Vajpayee as the “Indian PM who travelled to Lahore by bus” as his famous bus trip to Lahore in 1999 made him popular in Pakistan, to the extent that former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif said Vajpayee could even win an election in Pakistan.
Journalist-turned-politician, senator Mushahid Hussain Syed, termed Vajpayee’s death as “an irreparable loss” and said that “he was [an] icon of peace who had a Nixonian vision to reach out for building bridges with Pakistan”. PML-N politician Maiza Hameed expressed grief, saying: “Saddened by the death of a true statesman... One of the few men whose experience was surpassed only by his genuine wisdom.”