Kaur: Choosing friendship over country ‘condemnable’

chandigarh — Dalbir Kaur, sister of Sarabjit Singh who died in a Pakistan jail in 2013, on Sunday hit out at Punjab Cabinet Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, saying he chose friendship over the country by attending the swearing-in ceremony of Imran Khan as Pakistan’s prime minister.

She also raised questions over Sidhu hugging Pakistan army chief when there were repeated instances of ceasefire violations along the LoC in the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir in the recent past.

“Besides praising Imran Khan,

Sidhu also said that ‘Hindustan jive te Pakistan jive, hasda wasda eh sara

jahan jive’ (India, Pakistan and the whole world should prosper). Before using such an expression on Pakistani soil, Sidhu should have pondered whether any Pakistani leader, artiste or player heaped similar praise on India on Indian soil,” the Amritsar-based Kaur asked.

Sidhu did not restrict himself to lavishing praise but even “warmly hugged the Army chief of Pakistan” at the swearing-in ceremony on Saturday trusting that General Qamar Javed Bajwa believes in peace, she added. How could Sidhu, while hugging and exchanging smiles, forget that Pakistan is the same nation which has repeatedly indulged in ceasefire violations at the LoC in which many of our jawans have been martyred and many civilians killed.

Sidhu should have felt the pain

“Being a member of the legislative assembly from Amritsar, which lies on the border with Pakistan, Sidhu, more than anyone else, should have felt the pain of border residents of J&K and what they have to face when there is unprovoked shelling from the Pakistani side,” Kaur said.

Kaur’s brother Sarabjit died following an attack on him by the inmates of a Lahore prison in April 2013. He was convicted of terrorism and spying by a Pakistani court and sentenced to death in 1991. However, the government had stayed his execution for an indefinite period in 2008.

Kaur also questioned “in what capacity Sidhu said that he has brought ‘a message of love’ to Pakistan as a goodwill ambassador of India. I want to ask the government whether they had deputed him as a goodwill ambassador?”.

Wearing a dark blue suit and a purple turban, Sidhu was among the special guests in Islamabad on Saturday on the invitation of cricketerturned-politician Imran Khan. Kaur claimed that Sidhu, a Congress leader and former Indian cricketer, “chose friendship with Imran Khan over his country”. —