- Friday, February 28, 2025
‘We do not need to work much to take back PoK as the demand for uniting with India will start from there only,’ Rajnath Singh said at an event in Jammu.
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIAN defence minister Rajnath Singh on Monday (26) slammed Pakistan to focus on problems in its own backyard and that New Delhi did not need much to do to take back Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
Reacting to Islamabad’s reaction to the joint Indo-US statement issued during prime minister Narendra Modi’s recent state visit to America, Singh said it was natural that the statement irked India’s western neighbour which has accused New Delhi of diverting the world’s attention from Kashmir.
He was speaking at ‘India’s National Security Conclave’ in Jammu, the winter capital of the northern Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
“I want to clearly tell Pakistan that it will not get anything by repeatedly raising the bogey of Kashmir,” he added.
“Aap apna ghar sambhaliye. Jis tarah ke halaat hain wahan, usmey kuch bhi ho jaye to ascharya nahi hona chahiye (Take care of your home. With the kind of situation that exists there, it won’t be a surprise if anything happens)”
“We do not need to work much to take back PoK as the demand for uniting with India will start from there only,” the defence minister added.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry reacted to the joint statement in which India and the US condemned “terrorism and violent extremism” in all its forms and called on Pakistan to ensure that territory under its control is not used for launching terror attacks. They also called for the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks and the 2016 Pathankot air base attacks be brought to justice.
“They (Biden and Modi) strongly condemned cross-border terrorism, the use of terrorist proxies and called on Pakistan to take immediate action to ensure that no territory under its control is used for launching terrorist attacks,” the joint statement said.
“We consider the Pakistan-specific reference in the ‘Joint Statement from the United States and India’, issued on 22 June 2023, as unwarranted, one-sided, and misleading. The reference is contrary to diplomatic norms and has political overtones. We are surprised that it has been added despite Pakistan’s close counterterrorism cooperation with the US,” a spokesperson of Pakistan’s foreign ministry said.
The Indian defence minister said the occupation of PoK doesn’t give Islamabad any locus standi, adding that the parliament already has a unanimous resolution that it is an integral part of India.
On Thursday (22), Modi said in his address to a joint sitting of the US Congress in Washington DC that there cannot be any ifs or buts while it comes to dealing with terror.
“More than two decades after 9/11 and more than a decade after 26/11 in Mumbai, radicalism and terrorism still remain a pressing danger for the whole world. These ideologies keep taking new identities and forms but their intentions are the same,” he said.
