On Monday (August 16), Pakistan PM Imran Khan extended his support to the radical Islamist outfit Taliban, following their takeover of power in neighbouring Afghanistan.
During the launch of the ‘Single National Curriculum’ in Islamabad, he justified the Taliban’s actions by claiming that the Afghan population had broken the ‘chains of slavery’. He also remarked that ‘cultural imposition’ (by the United States) was tantamount to ‘mental slavery.’
While further emphasising the ‘cultural aspect’, he commented, “When you adopt someone’s culture, you believe it to be superior and you end up becoming a slave to it.” He justified such ‘active slavery’ claiming that a mental slave was worse, given that his mind was subjugated and incapable of making big decisions.
Imran Khan and his sympathies for Taliban
In June 2013, when a US drone strike killed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan’s deputy chief Waliur Rehman Mehsud, Khan stirred controversy by referring to him as ‘pro-peace’. Rahman carried a bounty of USD 5 million on his head and was accused of organising attacks against the US and Nato forces in Afghanistan. He was also wanted in connection with a suicide attack on an American base in Afghanistan in 2009 that killed seven CIA agents. Later, he had suggested that the Pakistani Taliban should be allowed to ‘open an office’ in Pakistan to facilitate peace talks.
That’s not all. Imran Khan was also Taliban’s pick as peace talk mediator with Nawaz Sharif government. In 2012 he had even said that Taliban’s ‘holy war’ in Afghanistan is justified by Islamic law while visiting the hospital where Malala Yusufzai was treated a week prior. Malala, then a schoolgirl, was shot in the head by the Taliban in Swat valley of Pakistan in October 2012 for writing against the atrocities of Taliban in Swat Valley of Pakistan. Imran Khan has proved time and again that he is a terrorist sympathiser.
In July this year, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan had described the Taliban as ‘normal civilians’ and conceded that it was not possible for the government to hunt them down. He had justified his statement by claiming that there were more than 3 million Afghan refugees. He alleged, “Why don’t they give us evidence of this? When they say that Pakistan gave safe havens, sanctuaries to Taliban, where are these safe-havens? There are three million Afghan refugees in Pakistan. And Taliban are not some military outfit. They are normal civilians. And if there are some civilians in these camps, how is Pakistan supposed to hunt these people down? How can you call them sanctuaries?”
