Sheikh Rashid sees possibility of an Indian surgical strike

Railways minister says BJP may try to revive its vote bank by escalating tensions along LoC

LAHORE: Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid has said India may carry out surgical strike inside Pakistan in 2019 as India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is facing defeat in the state polls.

“India could start ceasefire violations along the LoC [Line of Control] and carry out a possible surgical strike. Indian PM Narendra] Modi government has to justify and satisfy their vote bank, and an anti-Pakistan campaign is what I am expecting from them,” Rashid said in a press conference on Thursday.

He said tensions along the LoC are likely to remain in the headlines in 2019 as the incumbent Indian government prepares to go for the general elections next year.

Talking about the opposition parties’ agitation over the ongoing accountability, he said the opposition parties are now untied to save themselves.

“The next year will be exponential and we can see massive developments on many fronts. One such development would be end of dynastic politics. They [opposition] all are now uniting against premier Imran Khan but nothing is going to happen,” he said.

Rashid said he might approach the Supreme Court of Pakistan against appointment of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif as chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

“Shehbaz Sharif as the PAC chairman can now call heads of all those institutions who are currently probing different allegations against him. This could be a joke with Pakistan”, he said.



Talking about railway, Rashid said: Today is a special day for us as we have successfully got vacated the Royal Palm Golf and Country Club Lahore. We did it without using force. Now the Supreme Court has ordered a third party to do audit of the club. We are thankful to the chief justice of Pakistan.

He said there are 1,491 railways cases pending decision in different courts.

“We will now pursue all such cases and will also take strict action against black sheep in the railways. The grabbers think that the railways can never take back its land. We will now initiate a new strategy to lease out railways land only for three-years.”

He announced that he will start four new trains in 2019 – two VVIP business class trains before March 23, 2019 and another two economy class trains for general public.

“With all such initiatives railways will also increase freight train numbers to twenty in 2019. If all this happens and if railways daily revenue could go up to Rs250 million, then sky will be the limit”.

Talking about the recent controversy related to prices of locomotives, which railways procured from the General Electric during tenure of the previous government, Rashid said the actual cost of a single locomotive is above Rs600 million not Rs440 million as claimed by former railways minister.

“We did not spend a single penny on procurement, instead we initiated 20 new passenger trains all of which are running above 100% occupancy,” he said.

Rashid also suggested using 62 coaches to operate an army-only train.

“I will talk with Chief of Army Staff regarding this initiative and will assure him that railways will earn through this train instead of taking funds to rehabilitate and operate the idle coaches,” he added.