Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Pakistan’s foreign minister, has backed his earlier claims when he called Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi the “butcher of Gujarat”. His comments were made at the UN Security Council in response to the Indian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who had called the Shehbaz Sharif-led country the epicentre of terrorism.
Jaishankar’s ministry lashed out against the comments made by Zardari, deeming them “uncivilized” and a “new low, even for Pakistan”.
Zardari, who defended his comments in an interview with Bloomberg Television, also said that he was “referring to the historical fact, and they [Indians] believe that repeating history is a personal insult.”
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Who is Bilawal Bhutto?
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is a Pakistani politician and
current chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party. He is the son of former
Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and ex-President of Pakistan Asif Ali
Zardari. He is the maternal grandson of former President and Prime Minister of
Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
Bilawal was born on September 21, 1988, in Karachi,
Pakistan. He attended Karachi Grammar School in Karachi and Froebel’s
International School in Islamabad for early education. In 1999, he went into
exile to Dubai along with his mother.
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He studied Modern History at the Oxford University and
Politics at Christ Church, receiving his degree in Bachelor of Arts in 2012,
which was later promoted to Masters of Arts by seniority.
Days after the assassination of his mother Benazir Bhutto
at Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007, Zardari was named as her successor and
chairperson of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). He was 19 at the time and a
student at Oxford University. At the press conference, Bilawal had said that
his father Asif Ali Zardari would run the party till he is ready.
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Pakistan People’s Party contested the Pakistan General
Elections 2018, under the leadership of Bhutto. PPP emerged as the largest
party in Sindh and the third-largest party in Pakistan, winning 43 seats in the
National Assembly. He won in Larkana with 84, 426 votes, losing in two other
constituencies to Imran Khan-founded Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) candidates.
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Zardari was appointed as Pakistan’s foreign minister in the Shehbaz Sharif cabinet, and has been serving in the role since April 27, 2022.