Mohammed Shami, Harbhajan Singh Virendra Sehwag, Irfan Pathan and Sourav Ganguly lash out at Imran Khan for his UNGA speech
India cricketers Mohammed Shami and Harbhajan Singh lashed out at Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan for speaking of hatred in his United Nations General Assembly speech. Shami took to Twitter to write: “Mahatma Gandhi spent his life spreading the message of love, harmony, and peace. @ImranKhanPTI from UN podium issued despicable threats and spoke of hatred. Pakistan needs a leader who talks development, jobs & economic growth, not war & harbouring terrorism #India.”
Harbhajan, in his tweet, said that as a fellow sportsperson, he expects Khan to promote peace. His post read: “At UNGA speech, there were indications for India of potential nuclear war. As a prominent sportsperson, Imran Khan’s choice of words ‘bloodbath’ ‘fight to the end’ will only increase hatred between the two nations. As a fellow sportsperson, I expect him to promote peace.”
Also former Indian cricketer Virender Sehwag shared a video on Twitter in which American anchors can be seen slamming the cricketer-turned-Prime Minister.
Sehwag shared the video and captioned the post as “You sound like a welder from the Bronx, says the anchor. After the pathetic speech in the UN a few days ago, this man seems to be inventing new ways to humiliate himself”.
In an interaction with an American news channel, Khan mocked the infrastructure in the country, saying “You have to go to China and see the way their infrastructure is. In New York, I am watching the car bumping around here.”
Former India captain Sourav Ganguly labelled Khan’s speech as “rubbish” and said this Imran Khan was not the cricketer the entire world knew.
“Viru, I see this and I am shocked… a speech which is unheard of…a world which needs peace, Pakistan as a country needs it the most… and the leader speaks such rubbish…not the Imran Khan the cricketer world knew…speech in UN was poor…,” Ganguly tweeted on Thursday night while replying to Virender Sehwag who also slammed the Pakistan Prime Minister.
Cricketer , Irfan Pathan has slammed Imran Khan for his speech at the UNGA and said his words did not reflect sportsmanship.
Ever since the Narendra Modi government’s decided to abrogate provisions of Articles 35A and 370 of the Constitution which provided special status to Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan has been trying to make it an international issue.
Article 370 of the Indian constitution which referred to the “Temporary provisions with respect to the State of Jammu and Kashmir”, gave special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Although the larger region of Kashmir has been the subject of dispute between India, Pakistan, and China since 1947, the re-organization of the state of Jammu Kashmir by the Modi government is only related to the part of larger Kashmir which falls within India and thus, purely an internal matter for India.
But Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan finding no headway out of his poor country’s domestic politics, has been making the effort to make this Indian internal administrative matter – an international issue. His inflammatory and abusive speech at the General Assembly in New York did not cut much ice. Visibly without much success, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan could not hide his frustration in his various press meets in September when he visited the US.
Addressing the United Nations General Assembly’s 74th session, Imran Khan had said: “If a conventional war starts between the two countries, anything could happen. A country seven times smaller than its neighbour what will it do — either surrender or fight for its freedom.”
“My belief is we will fight and when a nuclear-armed country fights till the end, it will consequence far beyond the borders. I am warning you. It’s not a threat but worry about where are we heading. If this goes wrong, you hope for the best but prepare for the worst,” Khan had added.
Rather than support, he has and continues to earn the condemnation of people every single day ever since. Cricketers are rightly the people to lead that flock.
R. VenuGopal