Pakistan assails India over provocative remarks on ‘AJK integration’

Islamabad says BJP-RSS leaders stoke hyper-nationalism in order to make electoral gains

Pakistan has rejected the “utterly delusional and provocative” remarks made by a leader of India’s ruling BJP party, who expressed hope for the ‘integration’ of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) in India under the incumbent Narendra Modi-led government.

"Hope AJK is integrated in India by 2024 as these things can be done only by PM Modi. For this we’ll have to come out of (the mindset for) potato, onions, pulses," Indian minister Raj Kapil Patil said.

Reacting to the highly provocative statement, the Foreign Office spokesperson said: “It is habitual of political figures from the BJP-RSS combine to drag Pakistan into India’s domestic politics in a bid to divert public attention from major issues and to stoke hyper- nationalism in order to make electoral gains”.

They would be well-advised to desist from indulging in absurd fantasies and to actually take cognisance of the grave situation on ground in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), it added.

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The FO spokesperson said despite decades of unabated Indian oppression and illegal and unilateral actions of August 5, 2019 under the BJP-RSS dispensation, the Kashmiris’ resolve to resist the Indian occupation has only strengthened with the passage of time.

The BJP Ministers would do well to remind themselves that Jammu and Kashmir is an internationally recognised dispute on the agenda of the UN Security Council whose numerous resolutions stipulate that the final disposition of the State of Jammu and Kashmir will be made in accordance with the will of the people expressed through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite conducted under the auspices of the United Nations, read the statement.

Rather than entertaining any notions of aggrandisement, Islamabad urged New Delhi to vacate its illegal occupation of IIOJK and be prepared for accountability for the brutalisation of the innocent Kashmiris by its occupation forces in IIOJK.

“Pakistan will continue to extend all possible support to the Kashmiri people in their just struggle to realise the legitimate right to self-determination, as pledged to them under the relevant UN Security Council resolutions.”