"Pak Game Plan To Paint Apocalyptic Scenarios"

Describing the decision to end special status to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 as a “long-awaited” step and the “right thing” to do, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday said it was expected that “the decision would not be uncontested,” given Pakistan’s “deep investments” in fueling terrorism and separatism in Kashmir. “What we’ve done, was long-awaited. In my view, it was the right thing to have been done. It should have been done many years earlier,” he said before a Washington audience.

“At the moment, given the fact that there have been such deep investments made by Pakistan in Kashmir, both in terrorism and in a kind of separatism… we don’t expect this to be uncontested,” the Foreign Minister said at an event organized by a top American think tank, The Heritage Foundation.

Asserting that Indian security forces had exercised the highest degree of restraint in Jammu and Kashmir after August 5 (when the Article 370 decision was announced), Mr. Jaishankar said Pakistan was fully expected to paint “apocalyptic scenarios” as had been its MO for several decades.