India has reiterated its “serious objection” to events in the United Kingdom that would glorify Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani. The move comes a few days after Bournville Councillor Peter Douglas Osborn was reported to have written a letter to UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd, asking for a ban on any event that glorified the Kashmiri militant whose death in an encounter with Indian security forces plunged the region in unrest for several weeks in 2016.
“We have no objection to peaceful events on political issues but take serious objection to any effort to glorify terrorists,” India’s Deputy High Commissioner Dinesh Patnaik said on April 5 , the Hindustan Times reported. “Would any council give permission to glorify terrorists who commit acts in the United Kingdom, such as the person who committed the Westminster Bridge attack last year,” he added.
Last July, a rally to commemorate Wani’s death in Birmingham ensured a note verbale, a semi formal communication, to UK’s Foreign Office from India, which made the local city council withdraw the permission for the rally. Later, the council allowed the event to go ahead.
Bournville’s Conservative Councillor Peter Douglas Osborn earlier wrote to UK Home secretary Amber Rudd asking for an intervention into events that honor Wani. He said in the letter that as per intelligence reports, another protest is being planned and that last year’s event “caused a lot of upset to our Indian community.” Osborn had promised then to get any event banned. “Indian media are very sensitive to such extremists being lauded in this country,” he said in the letter.
Osborn is yet to received a response. On April 5, Osborn said he was aware of such efforts locally. “We should not be honoring terrorists, particularly people who want to drive other religions out of Jammu and Kashmir,” he said, the report added.
In last year’s note verbale, India expressed disappointment with the UK government, saying that Wani sought dismemberment of the country. In January 20188, Indian Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju spoke to UK Security Minister Ben Wallace, raising concern over anti-India forces in the United Kingdom. Wallace had then assured him that UK would not allow such activities.
At a book release event last year, Indian envoy YK Sinha said that post-Brexit Britain’s eagerness to intensify trade with India would not happen if India’s core concerns were ignored.
“The way the UK permits anti-India activity on its soil, in Delhi people are quite perturbed about that. We are also a democratic society but we do not discuss issues that affect our friends and allies. Allowing anti-India elements to flourish here in the name of democracy will not do,” he was reported to have said then.