Rawalpindi : India and Pakistan saber rattling has resumed. It started, as is customary, with Pakistan Army Chief General Raheel Sharif’s comments that Kashmir is an “unfinished agenda” and a brazen warning that it will inflict ‘‘unbearable damage” in case of a “long or short” misadventure by the “enemy”.
It ended with the Minister of State in Narendra Modi’s PMO, Jitendra Singh, asserting that the only issue with Pakistan is to get back parts of Jammu and Kashmir under its illegal occupation. Singh emphasised that Jammu and Kashmir was and will remain an integral part of India. “If there is any unresolved issue related to Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan it is how the parts of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir can be again included in India,’’ Singh said, upping the ante.
General Sharif had not named India in his speech at the army headquarters but the reference was obvious as his remarks came against the backdrop of a statement by Indian army chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag who said last week that Indian army was prepared for “swift, short nature of future wars”.
“Let me reiterate that our armed forces are fully capable of defeating all sorts of external aggression. If the enemy ever resorts to any misadventure, regardless of its size and scale – short or long – it will have to pay an unbearable cost,” he said in his address at a special event in Rawalpindi to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1965 war with India.
The remarks have come amid heightened tensions and cross-border firing between Indian and Pakistani troops along the LoC.
Terming his remarks as “belligerent and irrational”, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said the only unfinished agenda before the world was to ensure that Pakistan ceases to be a safe harbour for global terrorists. He noted that Pakistan was imploding as well exploding both politically and economically. Recalling Pakistan’s previous “humiliations” in its wars with India, BJP secretary Sidharth Nath Singh said its army’s misadventure in 1965 received a befitting reply and it was humiliated in 1971 war and later during Kargil war. “If still the Pakistan Army chief wishes to daydream, it just goes to show Pakistan’s immaturity in dealing with India,” he said.
“As far India is concerned, our army has strongly responded to Pakistan army’s provocations in the past, continues to do so during the ongoing ceasefire violations and will do so in case of any future misadventure,” Sharma said.
