Indo-Pak civil society moves to ease tension between two countries

The Pak-India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy’s North West Frontier Province chapter will visit India to decrease tension between the South Asian neighbours in the aftermath of Mumbai terrorist attacks.

Forum Chairman Khwaja Waseem said here Tuesday that the Mumbai chapter of Pak-India forum has invited the NWFP chapter to India on December 7 for playing its role and decreasing tension between the two nuclear neighbours caused by Mumbai terrorist attacks which killed about 200 people and injured hundreds.

“The Mumbai terrorist attacks have wrecked the 14-year peace process of the Pak-India forum. The Indian government should issue responsible statements and should not make accusations against Pakistan without having concrete evidences,” Waseem went on to say.

He said that the Indian government and political leaders should stop using pressure tactics and issue responsible statements as being issued by the Pakistan government and its political leaders.

He said deployment of troops on borders and war were no solution to any issue. He said both the nuclear neighbour states have fought three wars which gave nothing to them except greatly affecting people of India and Pakistan and doubling poverty and unemployment in both the countries.

Pak-India forum, NWFP chapter secretary-general Qaiser Khan expressed deep concern over the Indian government’s accusations against Pakistan before carrying out investigations in detail.

He said such statements would not only slow down peace process between the two countries but would also greatly affect Pak-India forum’s 14-years efforts for people to people contacts between the two countries.

He said that during their visit to India, they would tell the Indian people that war was no solution to any problem as people of both the countries were badly affected by wars in past. He said governments of both the countries have been spending a big chunk of their national exchequers on defence budgets which could be spent on development schemes.

He said that it was the responsibility of world states, specially the US to ease the tension between the two countries.

Khan said that Pakistan has already been passing through economic crisis and spending its available resources on war on terror in tribal areas.

He said that there is a possibility that Pakistan might spend the International Monetary Fund loan on security measures to tackle with India rather than to improve its economic conditions if the US did not play its role in easing the tension between the two countries.