Re: Anti-Pakistanism in India
So back to the start of the topic. What does the student who got attacked think about his time in India? Does he endorse the view that Indians are anti-Pakistani? It is deeply saddening, troubling and shameful what happened to him in his final year of study, but what about before that? i hope the culprits are punished and given maximum punishment.
During his stay in India he wrote a** book called “why I do not hate India” **which will be published in English and Hindi and consists of his impressions of 15 sectors in India which have developed.
Bilateral ties: Love thy neighbour - Pakistan - DAWN.COM
**“I will go to India again a thousand times as I have more friends there than I have in Pakistan,” said Ali Hassan Raza, a Pakistani student in India who was beaten in his hostel at Pondicherry University on May 13. He came back home two days later. Raza had just completed his two-year postgraduate specialisation in South Asian Studies when the incident happened. He is now back in his hometown of Pattoki, 84km from Lahore.
**It is important that there are more people-to-people contacts and that citizens have a better understanding of each other. “In India, many universities have Pakistan Studies departments and many students have done PhDs on Pakistan but we don’t have Indian Studies centres at our universities,” Raza exclaimed.
“I went to the hostel washroom early in the morning and left the door of my room open. In my absence, somebody sneaked into my room and, when I went back to sleep, the guy opened the door for two other people,” Raza explained. He said the attackers beat him up with iron rods, hung a rope around his neck and hit him on the head with a cold drink bottle.
“The attackers left after some time and I don’t think they wanted to kill me,” the student said, adding that he stayed in hospital for the next two days until arrangements were made for his return to Pakistan. Replying to a question as to what could be the motive behind the incident, he said he did not know the cause as he was quite popular at the campus. He’s not sure whether the assailants wanted to send a message, malign the university or simply wanted to divert attention as general elections were going on at that time.
“The authorities responded to the incident, the state governor came to meet me in the hospital and the regional police chief also visited and assured me security,” he said. However Pakistani authorities did not respond until he contacted them through an official whose number he had obtained, Raza added. Once the incident got media attention, Raza says help came from the Pakistani officials and the Pakistani ambassador got in touch with him.
Pakistani student beaten up in Indian university arrives in Lahore – The Express Tribune
Raza, an [international relations
http://cdncache-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png](http://www.paklinks.com/gs/#) student, was sleeping in his hostel room when three unidentified men entered his room and attacked him with steel rods on May 13.
**The attackers left when nearby students arrived to rescue him.
**Raza, the first and only Pakistani at Pondicherry University had earlier emphasised that he was never discriminated on the basis of his religion or nationality during his two-year stay in India.
****These are his own words. If you listen to the 2 min interview on the link above he says he went there to do work on a topic which was “perception of Indian youth towards Pakistanis” where he asked people “what do you think about Pakistan? What do you want” In reply he was overwhelmed by the answers and he says " itna acha sab hi ka response tha" that he was surprised that so many of the Indian youth wanted there to be good relations between the 2 countries.
No denying the existence of Pakistan or any of that some assume.
I think as a Pakistani student living in India for 2 year and working on this topic he would have more insight into whether there was anti-Pakistani sentiment on ground level in India during his time there. Indians/Pakistanis living abroad or in Pakistan cannot have that same insight. All the rest of us have is news media which is not always unbiased.
Hope you have a good day too.
