ISLAMABAD On Wednesday, the Indian military and foreign office denounced remarks made by Army Chief Gen. Upendra Dwivedi and Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh as “fallacious” and “politically motivated,” cautioning that such rhetoric is a major danger to regional peace and stability.
Given its own well-established history of state-sponsored terrorism and subversive actions abroad, the FO’s scathing response highlighted the hypocrisy of India’s charges.
The FO statement said, “India must reflect and confront its own documented involvement in planning targeted assassinations, acts of subversion, and state-sponsored terrorism in foreign territories, rather than making unfounded accusations against others.”
“The land of PoK (a reference to Azad Jammu and Kashmir) is being used to run dangerous and treacherous business of terrorism,” Mr. Singh claimed in remarks made during the 9th Armed Forces Veterans’ Day ceremonies in Akhnoor in India-held Jammu. Pakistan needs to stop its heinous activities and put an end to its risky strategy; otherwise, dot, dot, dot.
“Jammu and Kashmir would not be complete without [Azad Jammu and Kashmir],” he added.
Islamabad responds angrily to the provocations of the army chief and defense minister, ordering New Delhi to examine its own involvement in international terrorism.
The FO reaffirmed that Jammu and Kashmir is still “an internationally recognized disputed territory” and that the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) decisions must be followed to determine its ultimate status, even as it denounced Mr. Singh’s comments.
“India has no moral or legal basis to make false claims to the areas of Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir,” it said.
The Indian army chief called Pakistan the “epicentre of terrorism” during his yearly Army Day press conference, asserting that 80 percent of terrorists operating in the region are Pakistanis.
“This kind of terrorist infiltration will continue to exist if the support is not forthcoming the way India is looking at it,” Gen. Dwivedi stated.
He also charged Pakistan for inciting turmoil in the area and said that the strong voter turnout in the polls in occupied Jammu and Kashmir showed that residents were “shunning violence.”
Gen. Dwivedi’s assertions were rejected by Pakistan’s military, via the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), as a “classic case of extreme duplicity” and an attempt to divert attention away from human rights abuses in India-held Kashmir.
“The Indian army chief’s suggestion that Pakistan is the epicenter of terrorism is not only untrue, but it is also a pointless attempt to undermine India’s default stance of blaming Pakistan for the indigenous response to state-sponsored violence,” the statement said.
The ISPR cautioned against weakening professionalism and state-to-state conduct, emphasizing that such utterances demonstrated the “extreme politicization” of India’s military leadership. Additionally, it brought attention to India’s international repression, which includes state-sponsored terrorism and targeted killings.
Kulbhushan Jadhav, a serving Indian military officer, is being held in Pakistan due to his involvement in terrorism in Pakistan, the military’s media wing recalled.
It stated, “The General appears to have conveniently overlooked the sobering fact that a senior serving Indian military officer is in Pakistan’s custody, caught red-handed while orchestrating acts of terror against innocent civilians inside Pakistan.”
The military and the FO also called on the international world to acknowledge Delhi’s repressive actions in India-held Kashmir, calling them violations of the UNSC resolutions guaranteeing the Kashmiri people’s right to self-determination.
