Afghan envoy Mamundzay lambasts Imran Khan for terming Taliban as normal civilians

New Delhi [India], July 30 (ANI): Afghan Ambassador to India, Farid Mamundzay on Friday lambasted Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan for terming Taliban as normal civilians and said ordinary people of Afghanistan do not take up arms and commit crimes against society.

Speaking to ANI, he said, “I think it’s by no standards we can call them (Taliban) ordinary people of Afghanistan, people who destroy a lot of infrastructures, and a lot of destruction to human lives, inflicting so much harm to our society could not be the common or ordinary people of the country. I think common people don’t commit crimes that are justified. They will not be cruel to humankind.”

He was at Raisina House attending Indo-Afghan Cultural Week when he made strong remarks on Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan. Going further, he said, “I think common peoples are those peoples who would not take arms, the rule of law into their own hands and would not commit crimes. They are difficult to be justified. They would not be cruel to humankind.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Imran Khan said that the Taliban are not some military outfits but normal civilians, asking how the country is supposed to hunt them down when it has three million Afghan refugees at the border. In an interview with PBS NewsHour aired Tuesday night, Khan stressed that Pakistan hosts three million Aghan refugees of which the majority are Pashtuns, the same ethnic group as the Taliban fighters.

“Now, there are camps of 500,000 people; there are camps of 100,000 people. And Taliban is not some military outfit, they are normal civilians. And if there are some civilians in these camps, how is Pakistan supposed to hunt these people down? How can you call them sanctuaries?” he argued. Pakistan has been long accused of helping the Taliban militarily, financially, and with intelligence inputs in their fight against the Afghanistan government, but Imran Khan dismissed these accusations as “extremely unfair”.

Despite ample evidence that suggests the contrary, Pakistan PM also stated that his country was neither “responsible” for the actions of the Taliban. “What the Taliban are doing or are not doing has nothing to do with us. We are neither responsible nor the spokesperson for the Taliban.” (ANI)