BHUBANESWAR: Members of India's ruling party set fire to effigies of Pakistan’s foreign minister on Saturday.
Following a war of words between the two rivals at the UN in New York, Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar told Pakistan to "try to be a good neighbour", calling the country the "epicentre of terrorism". Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto responded by calling India's Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi the "butcher of Gujarat". This was in reference to when Modi was the chief minister of the state of Gujarat when sectarian riots in 2002 left more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, dead. He was accused of turning a blind eye to the violence.
On Friday, hundreds of members of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members held a protest outside Pakistan's High Commission in New Delhi over the remarks. The BJP announced new protests around the country for Saturday, and in the cities of Bhubaneswar, Amritsar and Ranchi, demonstrators set fire to effigies of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and shouted slogans. On Friday, India's foreign ministry called Bilawal Bhutto Zardari's comments a "new low even for Pakistan".
