New Delhi: Pakistani batsman Shahid Afridi believes Imran Khan must do more about Kashmir and, India and Pakistan should resolve the issue through a Kashmiri-owned, Kashmiri-led peace process.
He also asserts that “Kashmir belongs to the Kashmiris. Not to Indians. Not to Pakistanis. That debate comes later. But first and foremost, Kashmir is for the Kashmiri people themselves.”
Afridi has come out with his autobiography in which tells his life story just the way he bats – instinctively, candidly and with no holds barred.
‘Game Changer’ is co-written with journalist Wajahat S Khan and published by HarperCollins India imprint Harper Sport.
Afridi says he is a big fan of ‘what Khan’s Naya Pakistan is doing with India’.
“From his peace overtures (I quote his first speech, about Pakistan taking two steps towards peace if the Indians take one step – an approach I personally believe in too) to opening the Kartarpur corridor and releasing the Indian Air Force pilot shot down by the Pakistanis in February 2019 – peaceful relations with India are essential. Both countries, even the subcontinental region, will flourish,” the all-rounder writes.
“However, Imran Khan must do more about Kashmir. We have to resolve that issue. We have to save the Kashmiri people, and we must involve them in the peace process. Nobody in the Indian subcontinent has suffered or struggled more than Kashmiris,” he says.
“So much resources go into guarding this territory. So much goes into policing the Line of Control. So many mouths can get fed, so many minds can be nourished, if India and Pakistan resolve the Kashmir issue through a Kashmiri-owned, Kashmiri-led peace process,” he writes.
Afridi claims that Indo-Pak peace is a whole different argument and boils down to one man: Narendra Modi. He also claims that Khan is ‘relatively more flexible than Modi ji’ and ‘he has already proven this’.
PTI
