UK authorities have issued an apology to their Indian counterparts after the Indian National Flag in Parliament Square was torn down and stamped on by groups of Khalistani and Pakistani protestors rallying against the visit by Narendra Modi. The protests featured Khalistani as well as Pakistani protestors raving about the alleged upsurge in crimes against women in India and the violence in Kashmir. They also brought up the deaths of ‘rationalists’ like Gauri Lankesh, who’s murder the ‘secular’ government of Karnataka hasn’t been able to solve yet.
Khalistani protestors from the Sikh Federation UK and members of the group “Minorities against Modi” led by Pakistani-origin Nazir Ahmed were among the protests that took a violent turn.
Indian journalists claimed that they were assaulted during the protests and have urged the authorities to take action against the accused. The presence of Pakistani and Khalistani individuals in the protests and the manner in which journalists were assaulted indicates that their attack on Modi was merely a cover to veil their larger anti-India sentiments. However, their protest hardly achieved their purpose, as they rarely ever do. The brilliant interaction between Modi and the people denied the protesters the attention they so craved.
One would have thought that if the protesters were really concerned about rising crimes against women, they would have paid some attention to the recent events in the country of their current residence as well. Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs have been preying on children, as young as 11 in some cases, and there has been a systematic cover-up of the entire matter over decades as the authorities did not want to appear racist. If the protesters are really concerned about the safety of women, they should be clamoring for justice for the hundreds and thousands of girls who were sacrificed at the altar of multiculturalism by the British authorities. But of course, the protest was designed to undermine India’s growing stature in the world, victims of heinous crimes were merely a ruse. To be fair to the Sikh Federation UK, they have regularly raised their voice against the use of the word ‘Asian’ to describe members of the grooming gangs which overwhelmingly consist of Pakistani Muslims.
Indian journalists like Rajdeep Sardesai did condemn the protests after they turned violent and their own journalists were assaulted. However, until that moment, they hardly commented on the Khalistani and Pakistani protestors behind the anti-Modi mobile billboards that were doing the rounds in London.
After the disastrous Justin Trudeau trip which exposed the links between Khalistani elements and the top echelons in the current Canadian disposition, the Khalistani monster has again reared its head. However, unlike the Canadian government, the British government doesn’t appear to be sympathetic to anti-Indian elements.
Despite the protests and the violence, Narendra Modi’s trip to the UK can be called a remarkable success. His interaction with the people in the Central Hall of Westminster definitively changed the ongoing discourse and shifted the narrative to the benefit of the Bharatiya Janata Party. One can now hope that the British authorities will act on the complaints filed by the Indian journalists and ensure that the guilty are punished for their transgression.