Pakistan warns India’s actions could lead to repeat of deadly exodus

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan says the Indian government’s actions in the disputed Kashmir and with regard to a new citizenship law could drive millions of Muslims from India in what could become another refugee crisis.

Addressing the Global Forum on Refugees in the Swiss city of Geneva on Tuesday, Khan said that those actions could lead to millions of Muslims fleeing India and creating “a refugee crisis that would dwarf other crises.”

He said such a crisis could even lead to a conflict between his country and India, both of which are nuclear-armed.

“We are worried there not only could be a refugee crisis, we are worried it could lead to a conflict between two nuclear-armed countries,” the Pakistani prime minister said, alarmingly.

The citizenship law makes it easy for non-Muslims from neighboring countries to gain citizenship in India.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government says the new law will save religious minorities such as Hindus and Christians from alleged persecution in neighboring Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan by offering them an easy path to Indian citizenship.

This is while the Rohingya Muslim minority from Myanmar has faced genocide in that country and is now almost entirely camped in a non-state-recognized status in Bangladesh.

The latest Indian law has brought several regions in the country to the brink, with Muslims fearing they might be under threat in India.

Khan’s modern-day warning has a historical precedent — involving exactly Pakistan and India.

In August 1947, the British Raj partitioned into two independent states, the Hindu-majority India and the Muslim-majority Pakistan. As a result of that partition, millions were uprooted, marking one of the largest mass migrations in history. Experts estimate that at least one million died in the communal violence unleashed by partition that continues to haunt the Indian Subcontinent to this day.

In a week of opposition to the citizenship law, a series of violent clashes have taken place between thousands of protesters and police in India, including brutal encounters at university campuses.

Fresh protests hit India over anti-Muslim law, police brutality caught on video

A fresh round of protests breaks out against an anti-Muslim citizenship law in India, amid evidence of excessive force by police.

Modi told a rally for a state election on Tuesday that his political rivals were trying to mislead students and others to stir up protests. “This is guerrilla politics, they should stop doing this.”

The passage of the citizenship law follows the revocation of the autonomy of the Indian-controlled Kashmir in early August, and a recent court ruling clearing the way for the construction of a Hindu temple on the site of a mosque razed by Hindu zealots.

Khan said in his Tuesday remarks that Pakistan would not accommodate more refugees coming from India in the wake of a crackdown by New Delhi in the Muslim-majority region of Kashmir.

There have been increasing questions about the stance of the Modi administration with regard to India’s 172 million Muslims.

Modi hails from the hard-line Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Many Muslims in India say they have been made to feel like second-class citizens since Modi came to power in 2014. While he has been officially absolved, he is blamed by many for a violent crackdown on the Muslim community in the state of Gujarat in 2002, when he was the chief minister of the state.

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