Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has come under criticism on social media after a video showed him making what many viewers read as a threatening gesture at an Afghan woman journalist who questioned him about Islamabad’s ties with the Taliban, ANI reported.
The exchange took place on the sidelines of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly in New York. According to ANI, citing video of the encounter circulating online, the journalist asked Asif what message Pakistan had for the Taliban on their treatment of Afghan women. She also asked why Islamabad had not pressed the group on the issue from the start, when the two sides were seen as friends.
Asif did not answer. In the video he cut across her and gestured at her clothing, telling her not to return to Afghanistan dressed that way because the people there would otherwise do something to her. As he spoke, he drew his hand across his throat.
The reaction
Social media users condemned the response. Many said the gesture plainly implied that the journalist could be killed if she went back to Afghanistan. Critics also noted that she had raised a serious question about the Taliban’s policies towards Afghan women and Pakistan’s position on them, and that it deserved an answer rather than a gesture suggesting a threat to her life. It was not immediately clear whether Asif has responded to the criticism.
The incident comes amid open hostility between Islamabad and Kabul. On Thursday, Pakistan carried out what it called precision air and drone strikes at 10 locations across Afghanistan, Dawn reported, citing Information Minister Attaullah Tarar. Tarar said on X that the strikes were a response to drones launched from Afghanistan a day earlier, and that the targets were sites allegedly used to launch and store those drones. He described the action as calibrated and proportionate, limited to military objectives tied to the attempted attacks on Pakistan.
Kabul rejected that account. Taliban government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said four Afghans were killed, condemned the strikes as a criminal and unprovoked act of aggression, and warned of “dire consequences.” ANI noted that cross-border hostilities between the two neighbours have continued, with Pakistan resorting to military action including air strikes.