India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced nationwide protests on Saturday against the "highly shameful and derogatory remark" of the Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.
Zardari labeled Modi as the “butcher of Gujarat,” apparently accusing the Indian PM of being involved in the 2002 communal riots.
As per official statistics, 1,044 people were killed and 2,500 others injured in sectarian violence between Hindus and Muslims after a train carrying Hindu pilgrims was torched by unidentified people in Gujarat in 2002.
His comments came in response to India's FM Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s remarks highlighting Pakistan's role in aiding cross-border terrorism against its western neighbor.
"BJP workers will burn the effigy of Pakistan and Pakistani foreign minister and will strongly condemn [his] shameful statement," the party said this week.
Zardari's remarks against PM Modi are aimed at “misleading the world and divert[ing] global attention from Pakistan's collapsing economy, lawlessness and anarchy," the BJP added.
Earlier in the day, the Indian Foreign Ministry said the Pakistan foreign minister's "frustration" would be better directed towards the masterminds of terrorist enterprises in his own country.