New Delhi: After an Indian Air Force pilot was held captive in Pakistan on Wednesday, author and the granddaughter of former Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Fatima Bhutto, urged the Imran Khan government to release the Indian pilot who is in Pak custody.
“I and many other young Pakistanis have called upon our country to release the captured Indian pilot as a gesture of our commitment to peace, humanity and dignity,” Bhutto wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times.
The Indian Air Force pilot was taken into custody on Wednesday after he ejected safely from his MiG 21 Bison aircraft but landed across the Line of Control (LOC).
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Fatima Bhutto who is als also the niece of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said, “We have spent a lifetime at war. I do not want to see Pakistani soldiers die. I do not want to see Indian soldiers die. We cannot be a subcontinent of orphans.”
Meanwhile, India has demanded ‘immediate and safe return’ of the pilot who was taken into custody by Pakistani army following a fierce engagement between air forces of the two sides along the Line of Control.
“My generation of Pakistanis have fought for the right to speak, and we are not afraid to lend our voices to that most righteous cause: peace,” said the daughter of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s son Murtaza Bhutto.
“But our long history with military dictatorships and experience of terrorism and uncertainty means that my generation of Pakistanis have no tolerance, no appetite, for jingoism or war,” she added.
Bhutto said like her, a large section of the population was against the escalation of tensions.
“I have never seen my country at peace with its neighbour. But never before have I seen a war played out between two nuclear-armed states with Twitter accounts,” Bhutto said.