‘Stop creating war hysteria against Pakistan to win polls’

Shaukat Yousafzai condemns Indian political leadership for promoting intolerances in the region

PESHAWAR: Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Information Shaukat Yousafzai on Saturday told Indian leaders to try winning elections on basis of performance rather than war hysteria against Pakistan.

He said that Pakistan wants peace with its neighbours, but its enemies should know that it is not the Pakistan of ‘70s.

Responding to the sabre rattling of the Indian premier, he condemned the Indian political leadership for promoting intolerances in the region.

While addressing to the Pashtun Culture Day at Edwardes College Peshawar on Saturday, the information minister urged Indian Premier Narendra Damodardas Modi to concentrate on performance for the upcoming election and don’t use such war mongering atmosphere for trying to win the election.

“Pakistan is not the state which it was in ‘70s. We are a country of nuclear capabilities, we will never succumb to the aggression of India, we have forces which always stood first in the training and combating exercises,” Yousafzai said.

The Indian political parties always used such tactics in the past that whenever the election are the verge of commencing, they staged such drama, and Pakistan never allowed it soil to be used against any neighbours .

He pressed on the college administration to organise such events, that a positive image of the country should prevailed and asked the students to head to any calls from country enemy, stay focused to the studies.

In order to promote Pashtun culture and share with the world a softer image of Pashtuns living across the border with Afghanistan, members of the Pashto Society of Edwardes College Peshawar, held a fine-looking show, Pashtun Culture Day.

With stalls decorated colourfully representing different cultures of almost all the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) districts, students adorned in cultural dresses attracted visitors, mostly who left the college decades ago and came to participate with family members.

Over a dozen of stalls were available not only promoting different cultures, dresses and music but many offered deliciously cooked food with some, mostly from the hilly districts offered dry fruits.

“Very encouraging seeing youngsters promoting their thousands of years of old culture which without any doubt inspires everyone,” was the way former Senator Afrasyab Khattak shared his views on holding Pashtun Culture Day in the provincial capital.

According to Khattak, it is the culture which truly represented a nation adding that such programmes were the last hope for survival of a nation’s culture.

“I remember, in the past few years, dozens of articles appeared in different national and international journals promoting Pashtun culture and this is what keeps our culture alive,” Khattak told The Express Tribune.

Dancing on the tunes of what people say ‘music of the mountains’, dozens of students gathered in the centre of the hockey ground and performed Atan besides other Pashto songs were played in order to add to the delight of those attending the event.

“The college is not only famous for its quality education, producing the best future leaders, politicians, members of the armed forces and bureaucrats but has also been focusing on co-curricular activities and this [Pashto Culture Day] is one perfect example,” said Ataullah Jan, vice principle academics.

Jan stated that besides education, students of the college hold different events at different intervals annually adding that besides Pashto Culture Day, one of the best annual events was staging dramas on different famous English novels.

“Not only these activities but our stage dramas on famous English novels is what Edwardes College is famous for and honestly people ask us about the schedule of such stage dramas,” Jan informed.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 24^th, 2019.