Author Fatima Bhutto, the granddaughter of former Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, on Wednesday asked the Pakistan government to release the Indian Air Force (IAF) pilot captured after air combat.
Bhutto took to her twitter account and tweeted, “Pakistan must maintain this profoundly moral stand. It would be an important gesture to release the captured Indian air force pilot. Our commitment at this moment must be to peace and humanity.”
“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. 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,” Bhutto wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times.
“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,” she said.
She further added, “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.”
Pilot Abhinandan was captured yesterday after he ejected safely from his MiG 21 Bison aircraft but landed across the Line of Control (LoC).
India has demanded “immediate and safe return” of the Indian Air Force pilot who was taken into custody by the Pakistani army.
