Writer Fatima Bhutto seeks release of captured Indian pilot
Grand daughter of former Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
Washington, Feb 27: Author Fatima Bhutto, the grand daughter of former Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Wednesday asked the Imran Khan government to release an Indian Air Force pilot captured after an air combat.
Pilot Abhinandan Varthaman was captured on Wednesday after he ejected safely from his MiG 21 Bison aircraft but landed across the Line of Control.
India has demanded immediate and safe return of the Wing Commander Varthaman, who was and was taken into custody by Pakistani army following a fierce engagement between air forces of the two sides along the Line of Control.
"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," Bhutto, 36, wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times.
"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," said Bhutto, a writer who is also niece of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
"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," said daughter of Murtaza Bhutto, son of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
She said Pakistan's recent history was bloody and no one has suffered more violence than its own citizens.
"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," she said.
Bhutto said like her, a large section of the population was against the escalation of tensions.
"I have never seen my country at peace with its neighbour. But never before have I seen a war played out between two nuclear-armed states with Twitter accounts," Bhutto said.
In the afternoon on Wednesday, #saynotowar hashtag began to trend in Pakistan, before hitting the worldwide number 1 spot on Twitter.
Tensions between India and Pakistan rose following the February 14 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district in which 40 CRPF soldiers were killed. Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terror group claimed responsibility for the attack.
Following the incident, India bombed and destroyed JeM's biggest training camp in Balakot in Pakistan's restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, about 80-km from the Line of Control (LoC) early Tuesday, killing a "very large number" of terrorists, trainers and senior commanders.
On Wednesday, Pakistan claimed it shot down two Indian fighter jets over Pakistani air space and arrested the pilot.
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Bridge portion collapses on Jammu outskirts; 3-4 labourers feared trapped, 1 rescued
Jammu (PTI): A portion of a small bridge collapsed in the Bantalab area on the outskirts of Jammu city on Friday, trapping at least three to four labourers under the debris, while one injured worker was rescued, official sources said.
Authorities have closed the road link following the collapse of the portion of the bridge.
The incident occurred when labourers were carrying out repair work on a retaining wall near the bridge that was damaged in last year's flash floods, the sources said.
According to the sources, a section of the bridge suddenly gave way, burying workers engaged at the site under the rubble.
Police, Army and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) teams launched rescue operations to extricate those buried under the debris. They pulled out one injured labourer and shifted him to a hospital, the sources said.
Family members of the labourers present at the site said around six workers engaged at the site at the time of the incident came under the debris when the structure collapsed. The family members said while two of the labourers managed to escape, four got trapped.
The sources said those trapped included the husband of a woman labourer, a mason, an unmarried labourer and a relative of the contractor.
There was no official confirmation on the exact number of persons trapped under the debris till the filing of this report.
The rescue operations are ongoing.
