Author Fatima Bhutto has supported the release of IAF Pilot in Pak custody. On Wednesday, Bhutto who is the granddaughter of former Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto asked the Imran Khan government to release the Indian Air Force pilot who was captured after an air combat. The IAF pilot was captured after he ejected safely from his MiG 21 Bison aircraft but landed across the Line of Control, on Wednesday. India has demanded "immediate and safe return" of the pilot who was taken into custody by Pakistani army following a fierce engagement between air forces of the two sides along the LoC.
"I and many other young Pakistanis have called upon our country to release the captured Indian pilot as a gesture of our commitment to peace, humanity and dignity," Fatima Bhutto, 36, appealed in an op-ed in the New York Times.
"We have spent a lifetime at war. I do not want to see Pakistani soldiers die. I do not want to see Indian soldiers die. We cannot be a subcontinent of orphans..My generation of Pakistanis have fought for the right to speak, and we are not afraid to lend our voices to that most righteous cause: peace...But our long history with military dictatorships and experience of terrorism and uncertainty means that my generation of Pakistanis have no tolerance, no appetite, for jingoism or war ", said Ms Bhutto who is also the niece of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
"I have never seen my country at peace with its neighbour. But never before have I seen a war played out between two nuclear-armed states with Twitter accounts", said Ms Bhutto, the daughter of Murtaza Bhutto who is the son of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
It was on Wednesday afternoon that ‘#saynotowar’ hash tag began to trend in Pakistan, soon after which it grabbed the worldwide number 1 spot, on Twitter.
Tensions between India and Pakistan are on a rise since the February 14 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district in which 40 CRPF soldiers were martyred. Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terror group had claimed the responsibility for the attack. Following the incident, India bombed and destroyed JeM's biggest training camp in Balakot, around 80 km from the Line of Control early Tuesday, killing a "very large number" of terrorists, trainers and senior commanders. On Wednesday, Pakistan claimed that it shot down two Indian fighter jets over Pakistani air space and arrested the pilot, it was reported.