Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed, Pakistan’s former Interior Minister and chief of the Awami Muslim League, is facing sharp criticism after a video surfaced showing him sharing a public platform with operatives of the banned terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba. At the event, he heaped praise on the group’s chief Hafiz Saeed and, in the same breath, issued threats against India — a moment that has since sparked widespread outrage online.
The video shows Rasheed on stage alongside senior Lashkar commander Khalid Masood Sindhu and Qari Muhammad Yaqub Sheikh, a member of the terror outfit’s central advisory committee. Addressing the crowd, Rasheed didn’t mince words: “I am a slave — a *ghulam* — of Hafiz Sahab,” he declared, before adding, “We stand with Pakistan, we stand with Hafiz Saeed.”
From there, his remarks turned openly hostile toward India. “If India so much as casts an eye toward Pakistan, Allah himself will destroy that country,” he warned, going on to say, “Not even birds will chirp in India, nor will temple bells ring” — a line widely seen as a chilling threat rather than mere rhetoric. He also claimed that Hafiz Saeed’s phone number had once turned up on his own device while he was in the United States, alleging this was the reason he was later expelled from the country.
What makes the episode particularly striking is the man behind the remarks. Rasheed served as Pakistan’s Interior Minister under the Imran Khan government from 2020 to 2022 — a position that placed him in direct charge of the country’s internal security. That someone who once held that responsibility is now publicly aligning himself with a designated terrorist and threatening a neighboring nation has left many questioning what, if anything, has changed in how such figures are held accountable.