Stop Muslims’ massacre, Khamenei to India

Ag Agencies

NEW DELHI: Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Thursday urged India to “confront extremist Hindus” and “stop the massacre of Muslims”, adding to the international fallout over deadly Hindu-Muslim violence in New Delhi. “The hearts of Muslims all over the world are grieving over the massacre of Muslims in India,” Khamenei said in a tweet in English, just days after New Delhi rebuked Iran’s foreign minister for commenting on the same issue. “Iran condemns the wave of organized violence against Indian Muslims,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted on Monday, in response to which New Delhi summoned the Islamic Republic’s ambassador and lodged a protest. “We do not expect such comments from a country like Iran,” ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar said in a statement later. The citizenship law provides non-Muslims from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan a fast track to Indian citizenship. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government says this is required to help minorities from those mainly Muslim countries.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Imran Khan Thursday thanked Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for speaking against the oppression and massacre of Indian Muslims and Kashmiris by the Hindu supremacist Modi regime. In tweets, the prime minister regretted that few voices from the Muslim world were speaking out and condemning this and more were being raised in the West condemning the Hindu supremacist Modi regime’s massacre of Muslims in India and Kashmiris in the Indian Occupied Kashmir. He tweeted, “I want to thank Supreme Leader Khamenei, & President Erdogan for speaking against the oppression & massacre of Muslims in India & Kashmiris in IOJK by the Hindu Supremacist Modi regime”. The prime minister wrote, “Sadly, few voices from the Muslim World are speaking out & condemning this; & more voices are being raised in the West condemning the Hindu Supremacist Modi regime's massacre of Muslims in India & Kashmiris in IOJK”.