Pakistan Railway Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed. (Source: Samaatv/Youtube)On the airwaves, there's talk of war. Over here, the Prime Minister wants to declare war on plastic. Over there, Pakistan's minister for railways has warned of war with India, and the Indian channels have run with the story. “Jang!” warned Aaj Tak at prime time, in letters half as tall as the TV screen. And if you searched for videos of Pakistani minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed's dire warning on the internet, you would find that most of the coverage has been on Indian channels. In Pakistan, ARY News has the full video of the impassioned speech, which Ahmed delivered in Muzaffarabad, in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. He claimed to have warned about moves against Muslims when Iran and Yemen were pressed, and is issuing a warning again against Indians wishing to conduct a religious war. Though, of course, the Muslims of Pakistan know what to do about that. Now we know why Ahmed was replaced by Shaukat Aziz as the minister who would receive prime minister AB Vajpayee in Pakistan. The man would have given the game away without breaking a sweat.
Ahmed has had a colourful past. When he was minister for information and broadcasting, he was denied a permit to travel to Srinagar to meet relatives. He was detained and questioned in Houston over suspected links with Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hafiz Saeed. One must wonder why Indian TV channels have given so much attention to his war-dance. They…
