Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Credit: Reuters Photo
New Delhi: After Iran’s Supreme Leader Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei referred to the 'sufferings' of Muslims in India, New Delhi deplored his 'unacceptable' comments.
“We strongly deplore the comments made regarding minorities in India by the Supreme Leader of Iran,” the Ministry of External Affairs stated in New Delhi on Monday. “These (comments) are misinformed and unacceptable”.
New Delhi reacted after the Grand Ayatollah of Iran took to X and reminded the Muslims about the sufferings of the community in Gaza, Myanmar, and India.
“The enemies of Islam have always tried to make us indifferent with regard to our shared identity as an Islamic Ummah. We cannot consider ourselves to be Muslims if we are oblivious to the suffering that a Muslim is enduring in #Myanmar, #Gaza, #India, or any other place,” Khamenei wrote on X on Monday.
New Delhi sought to turn the table on Tehran. “Countries commenting on minorities are advised to look at their record before making any observations about others.”
Back in August 2019, Khamenei had also denounced the decision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to strip Jammu and Kashmir of its special status and to re-organise the erstwhile state into two union territories.
He had expressed concern about the situation of Muslims in a post on X (then Twitter). “We’re concerned about Muslims’ situation in #Kashmir. We have good relations with India, but we expect the Indian government to adopt a just policy towards the noble people of Kashmir and prevent the oppression & (and) bullying of Muslims in this region,” he had said in his post on the microblogging platforms.
He had said that the dispute over Kashmir between India and Pakistan had its roots in the vicious measures the British Government had initiated before leaving the subcontinent in 1947.
He had reacted to the clashes in northeast Delhi in March 2020 too. He had said in another post on X that Muslims all over the world were grieving over the status of the minority community in India. He had also posted that New Delhi should take steps to “prevent India’s isolation from the world of Islam”.