India engaged in 5GW to harm CPEC: ISPR

The Pakistan military has said that India is massively engaged in 5th generation warfare to tarnish Pakistan’s image at the international level to harm the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as “they [Indians] don’t want to let the project become successful”.

"The Indians are targeting Pakistan in diplomatic, economic, military, information and law domains as they have decided that there are such timelines after which CPEC becomes irreversible so it should be retarded before that time limit,” Inter-Services Public Relations Director General Major General Babar Iftikhar said in an interview with the Global Village Space (GVS) – an international media outlet – published on Thursday.

Maj Gen Iftikhar said that there were a lot of dimensions to the security of the CPEC project. “Alhamdulillah, we have taken all-out measures. Pakistan Army has raised two divisions for the project's security whereas eight to nine regular regiments are maintained for the protection of the routes of the entire corridor,” he said, adding that paramilitary forces were also part of the security apparatus for the CPEC routes.

"We are taking every possible measure to secure CPEC where our Chinese counterparts have expressed their satisfaction on the security measures."

To a question, he said that India perceived CPEC as a game changer for the region as it would provide connectivity to the entire region. "[In this scenario], Pakistan became a connectivity hub after the inception of this project. This project has the ability and potential to bring prosperity to the whole region and it’s not only a mere North West thing."

He said CPEC was an economic initiative which was visible from its name. However, Indians were uncomfortable and had very strange arguments about the project, he added.

To a query on 5th generation warfare, the ISPR DG explained that it employed all tools of national power and focus on two main spheres, which in Pakistan's case were economy and information domains.

“Anything related to Pakistan Army was erroneously shared and propagated to endorse the malicious propaganda of enemy countries.”

The ISPR DG regretted that a trivial news item was reported by the international media that was actually perpetrated from India. He was referring to the social media top trend civil war in Karachi that stormed Twitter resulting in news items reported by the global media.

He noted that 90% of negative press was generated from Indian websites. In the prevailing misinformation spree, the Indian media had lost its credibility to a larger extent by propagating fabricated and concocted news.

They were also lobbing before Pakistan's appearance in the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) plenaries. "India is targeting Pakistan from different directions to target the trajectory Pakistan has for the future," he added.

The ISPR DG said, “The threat perception in Pakistan is very clear that India is equipping itself with advanced technological gadgets as all the defence treaties [with other countries] are offering those facilities.

The defence spending disparity between Pakistan and India, he said, was 1:9. The world must realise that any imbalance of power in South Asia would impact the region and the entire world.

During the interview, the ISPR DG also dilated upon diverse security and defence-related issues linked with regional peace and stability, including Afghan peace process and the situation in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).

Major Gen Iftikhar shed light on the Indian designs in IIOJK and along the Line of Control (LoC), saying that India wanted to externalise what was going inside the country.

It had been continuously trying to tag the indigenous freedom struggle of the people of IIOJK as terrorism.

He said that the matter started with the revocation of Article 370 of Indian Constitution in August, 2019, stripping the valley of its special status. "Ever since, India has been facing negative press."

The DG said the dossier presented by Pakistan would be flagged at all global fora to highlight Indian state-sponsored terrorism on its territory. “The dossier brings forth the proofs of India as a state sponsoring terrorism, vindicating what Pakistan has been saying for long.”

He said the world had taken note of the dossier and started discussing it. "Despite a lot of Indian efforts, an objective analysis of the dossier has been started by the global community" and that objectivity was a major plus, he added.

On terrorist attacks from across the Afghan border, the ISPR DG said, “Pakistan is in regular contact with the Afghan government over the matter” as Islamabad realises that Kabul has capacity issues and never blames them for the terrorism from across the border.

On the western border fencing project, Major Gen Iftikhar said, "Our aim has been to ensure better management of this project. The fencing has been carried out in one of the most difficult terrains of the area as it has been a very porous border."

“About 83% of the Pak-Afghan border has been fenced and would be completed by the end of this month,” he added. "Pakistan has also initiated border fencing in Pak-Iran border area of its western borders whereas 30% of the fence has been carried out and will be completed by December 2021."

He explained that some areas were snow clad in the bordering region, where posts would be manned in a different way. A complete management of the western borders would be ensured, which would help control smuggling and other crimes and would have major dividends for the country.

The ISPR DG said that two world class border terminals among five would be established at Torkham and Chaman border terminals to improve border management and trade. The western border, he said, would be completely fenced to contain terrorist activities from across the border and border crimes.

To a query about the impact of fencing along the western border, he said that the number of terrorist incidents had decreased massively.

He said India was making massive efforts to create disturbance inside Pakistan, with mainly targeting border areas. The border management Initiative showed its significance for new military-civil leadership. Prime Minister Imran Khan announced a new border management force, which would be raised under the Ministry of Interior and would centrally manage the national borders from all routes of land and water.

To a question, he said: "Pakistan's role in the Afghan peace process is of a facilitator and has done what it can in the best of her capacities."

It was optimistic about the future course of the peace process as it believed that only Afghans had the right to decide what would happen next in the peace negotiations, he added.

"All the parties, including the Afghan and the US governments, had acknowledged Pakistan's role in the Afghan peace process and said Pakistan played the most positive role in bringing the Afghans, including the Taliban and the Afghan government, to the table to hold talks."

The ISPR DG also explained the military diplomacy doctrine followed by the current army leadership. "Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa's vision about military diplomacy is that we need peace within and around us, which has been received very positively."

Pakistan's military leadership, he said, had reached all the military leaderships in the region and around.

"Our military engagements with China, the Gulf region, the US and Russia have been done to explore new venues and take Pakistan's international image to a new level."

The outreach, whether it was for military training, strategic venues and others, was giving many dividends to Pakistan, he added. (With additional input from app)