Letter to Editor

April 20^th, 2018

He Also Stood

Yes Sir, he also stood but in the last row, 4^th from the right with only 3 others out of the 53 lower in a protocol to him.

The occasion was the official group photograph of the Commonwealth Heads of the State with Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, London, and one just can’t imagine that the order of seating and standing was not meticulously planned by the organisers of the event. Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, representing the 2^nd most populous country (200 plus  millions) of the Commonwealth only after India (2.1 billion) and ahead of Nigeria (170 million) and  Bangladesh (160 million), with the 2^nd  largest highly professional and well equipped standing army and the 3^rd CW Nuclear Power out of the only 7 world nuclear powers with its delivery system  to hurl its nukes anywhere across the globe  was conspicuous by his absence from the front rows !

https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2018/04/19/pm-abbasi-attends-opening-ceremony-of-chogm-2018/

Mr PM, you might not have felt being out of place at the photo session to stand after the piddling little never or little-heard-of countries like Antigua, Barbuda, Belize, Dominica, Fiji, Grenadines, Guyana Kiribati, Lesotho, Malawi, Nauru, Samoa, Seychelles, Tonga and Tobago etc. etc.  Sir, you may also be not considering yourself worthy of being a PM and still living under the shadow of MNS or you may also be not feeling slighted in taking off your clothes at the JFK, but Sir, we the nationals of Pakistan do feel humiliated by such treatment meted out to our Prime Minister. You would have done us and the country great honour by politely declining to be photographed in the manner you were subjected to.  But I suppose …

Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)
30 Westridge 1
Rawalpindi 46000
Pakistan
Tel: (051) 5158033
E.mail: [email protected]