AJK president warns India against ‘warmongering’

Sardar Masood reminds New Delhi that its army is only trained to deal with soft targets like unarmed civilians

MUZAFFARABAD: Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan has warned the civilian and military leadership of India against issuing irresponsible and provocative statements of imposing a war on AJK and Pakistan.

In a message to Indian army chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane and the leaders of ruling BJP, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and Mohan Bhagwat, President Masood said Pakistan’s armed forces and people of AJK and Pakistan are ready to teach India a lesson for its crimes against humanity in occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

The statement comes a day after the new Indian army chief continued with his belligerent rhetoric in his effort to stay in the headlines in India’s jingoistic media.

After threatening to carry out, what he called, “preemptive strikes” in Pakistan earlier this month, Gen Naravane went one step ahead on Saturday and said his force would take steps to take control of Azad Jammu and Kashmir if the Indian government gave such an order.

India army chief threatens to invade Azad Kashmir

“Indian Army is trained to deal with soft targets like unarmed civilians,” said the AJK president, adding that in the past 72 years it only accumulated experience in brutalising Kashmiris or killing its own civilians and had no experience of fighting an equal enemy.

“If it [New Delhi] takes the risk of attacking AJK or Pakistan, the Indian armed forces will be crushed because on this side of the border, the valiant armed forces and the people of AJK and Pakistan are ready to teach India a lesson for its crimes against humanity in the IOJK.”

The AJK president also said that India must not forget that it was defeated in 1948, 1965 and 1999 besides being pummeled in 1962 by China.

“Against this dismal record, it is in India’s own interest that it does not indulge in any bravado and braggadocio,” the president said and highlighted that at the dictation of the BJP and RSS, the new Indian army chief was trying to divert attention from the nationwide protests against the CAA and NRC.

“I think this time their ruse will not work because Indian citizenry has seen through their malicious designs,” he said.

“The people of Azad Jammu and Kashmir had driven out the Dogra forces in 1947 and repulsed Indian National Army’s attack to regain the liberated territory in 1948. At that time, the people of Azad Kashmir were driven by their passion against tyranny which enabled them to defeat Indian forces. Today, how can the BJP leadership think of attacking a nuclear-armed Pakistan? If India can find a way to go beneath the nuclear threshold, it would be surprised by a proportionate and punitive retaliatory response from Pakistan,” Sardar Masood said.

DG ISPR dismisses Indian army chief’s threat as ‘routine rhetoric for domestic consumption’

The president said the Indian army chief is hiding behind the parliament while making tall claims of ‘retaking’ Azad Kashmir. “You retake something that was yours in the first place. The territory of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan was liberated before India’s occupation of one part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. When you try to take something that is not yours, it is called aggression and irredentism,” he explained.

A day earlier, while addressing a session on Kashmir at the Afkar-e-Taza ThinkFest 2020 at Al Hamra Centre in Lahore, President Masood said the territory of Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir is under siege and New Delhi’s claims of prosperity and normalcy in the region are baseless.

“We reject this false claim which was accentuated by the dropping out of Delhi-based envoys belonging to the European Union from a ‘guided tour’ of IOJK organised by the Indian government,” he added.

The AJK president also briefed the audience on prevailing situation in the occupied valley. He said young Kashmiris are being rounded up and sent to the most notorious prison houses all over the northern India, where they are subjected to unimaginable torture leaving them scarred for life. He added that women are molested and treated as spoils of war.

President Masood said that the Kashmiris in an act of civil disobedience have imposed upon themselves an economic boycott and refused to sell their annual produce, amounting to millions of dollars.

He urged the global community to step forward to safeguard the lives of Kashmiri people. He said that the United Nations’ reaction has been very disappointing and reiterated that it should play a proactive role in resolving the Kashmir issue by implementing its resolutions and ensuring that the people of occupied Jammu and Kashmir exercise their right to self-determination through a free and fair plebiscite.