Kasuri, Ghulam Ali issues turn into diplomatic row

Pak concerned; India says don't lecture

Islamabad expressed concern over recent attempts to disrupt events featuring prominent personalities from Pakistan in India on Tuesday, prompting a strong response from New Delhi.

“We have noted with concern attempts to disrupt functions organised in respect of prominent Pakistani personalities on visit to India,” stated the Pakistan Foreign Ministry in a press release on Tuesday.

Islamabad referred to the cancellation of Pakistani Ghazal maestro Ghulam Ali’s concerts in Mumbai and Pune.

Ali was to perform in Mumbai on October 9 and Pune and October 10.
However, protests by the Shiv Sena compelled the organisers to cancel the events.
The press release issued in Islamabad also referred to the Shiv Sena activists’ attempts to force organisers to cancel launch of a book authored by former Pakistani foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri in Mumbai on Monday.

Sena activists blackened the face of Sudheendra Kulkarni, a columnist and former aide of BJP veteran L K Advani, just hours before Kasuri’s book was scheduled to be launched.  
The press release issued by the Pakistan government did not name the Shiv Sena, but referred to threats from “a fundamentalist organisation”.

“There is a need to ensure that such incidents do not recur,” said Qazi M Khalilullah, spokesperson of the Pakistan Foreign Ministry.

India, however, reacted strongly and made it clear that it did not require any lecture from Pakistan, which was well known for intolerance, religious bigotry and rampant discrimination against minority communities.

“Is Pakistan the embodiment of tolerance and pluralism?” a source familiar with Prime Minister Narendra Modi government’s views on the issue told journalists in New Delhi on Tuesday.