New Delhi: Prime time Thursday was dominated by Pakistani MP Ayaz Sadiq’s controversial speech in which he recounted how Pakistan was so afraid of the possibility of an Indian attack in February 2019, that it decided to release captured Indian Air Force officer Abhinandan Varthaman. Some channels also discussed the terror attack in France’s Nice.
First, to Times Now‘s Padmaja Joshi, who hosted a panel to discuss Ayaz Sadiq’s statement recalling how, “Mujhe yaad hai, Shah Mehmood Qureishi Sa’ab [Pakistan’s Foreign Minister] uss meeting mein the…Chief of Army Staff tashreef laaye… Pair kaamp rahe the, paseene maathe pe the, aur humse Shah Mehmood Sa’ab ne kaha, ‘Khuda ka vaasta, ab isko vaapis jaane dein, kyunki nau baje raat ko Hindustan Pakistan pe attack kar raha hai‘” (I remember, Mr Shah Mehmood Qureishi was in that meeting, the Chief of the Army Staff came… His legs were shaking, he was sweating, and Mr Qureishi said, ‘For God’s sake, now return him because India will attack Pakistan at 9 o’clock at night.’)
Pakistani political analyst Qamar Cheema said this is comparable to “the way Rahul Gandhi can say to Narendra Modi that your ‘legs tremble when you talk of China'”.
On Aaj Tak, Rohit Sardana discussed the same topic. Congress spokesperson Charan Singh Sapra accused the BJP of distracting voters during Bihar’s Assembly election. “These are the same people (BJP leaders) who went to Pakistan to attend Nawaz Sharif’s grand-daughter’s wedding, who went to see off Masood Azhar,” he added, somewhat puzzlingly.
And the BJP’s Syed Zafar Islam responded, “Whether it is the Bihar election or any other upcoming election, the country will not forgive Congress for questioning the army”. Predictable.
Zee News focused on the stabbings in a Nice church that have reportedly killed three, and said that India stands shoulder to shoulder with France. Anchor Sachin Arora also brought up Malaysian PM Mahathir Bin Mohamad’s tweet, in which he said that “Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past”.
Rajya Sabha MP Rakesh Sinha said whoever supports violence, whether in India or in France, is wrong.
On a CNN-News18 panel on the Nice attack, Burzine Waghmar, a researcher at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Pakistan’s Prime Minister “are the last people” to speak on Islamophobia. Erdoğan is responsible for the Syrian Civil War while Imran Khan is mum on the issue of Uyghurs in China.”
Anchor Anand Narasimhan later said, “No Islamic republic has all the 72 sects of Islamic thriving there, but a democracy of India is and that’s what I’m proud to represent… In our country, sir, for an Ahmadiyya to recite the Quran or talk about the Prophet is not blasphemy.”
Pakistan’s Qamar Cheema had a busy evening as he made an appearance here as well, to say, “The terrorists must be punished. No one can take law into their own hands but freedom of speech has its limits.”
Finally, Mirror Now took the road less travelled and focused on the economy. In an interview with Chairman of Maruti Suzuki, R.C. Bhargava, anchor Tanvi Shukla asked reports of buyers returning to the market are a sign of good economic activity. “Is this a temporary blip or can we be more hopeful?”
Bhargava said there was no way of knowing if “the pent-up demand” would be sustainable and expressed worry about “urban demand” in particular, post the festive season.
When asked if his company was in line with the recent narrative of boycotting Chinese products, Bhargava said Maruti is anyway not heavily dependent with imports hovering around 4-5 per cent.
“Many other companies resorted to salary cuts, massive lay-offs, but Maruti has largely steered away from that. How did you manage to tide through these few months?” asked Shukla. To this, the industrial tycoon responded, “We still made reasonable profits last year…We are a company who values our human resources.”
