Don’t Repeat 1971 Mistake, Think Of What May Happen To PoK freepressjournal.in

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday reminded Islamabad about the breakup of Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh, warning that something similar could happen in PoK if it did not mend its ways. Do not repeat the “mistake”, he said here.

“Pakistan broke up in 1971 – Pakistan and Bangladesh were formed. I am saying do not repeat the mistake, or else understand clearly what will happen to PoK,” he said. Singh made the reference to the 1971 War, fought when Indira Gandhi was prime minister, during an event at Dhankya village in the memory of RSS ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyay. “We do not accept the existence of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). Pakistan has kept it forcibly occupied and therefore, even today, 24 seats have been kept vacant for PoK in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly and I will not say beyond this,” Singh said.

He said India was “very careful” while taking action against terror camps in Balakot across the border after the Pulwama attack. It was not an attack on Pakistan’s army or a challenge to the sovereignty of Pakistan, he added. But he warned that he cannot predict “what will happen next” if the current situation continued. He said the BJP does politics for nation-building and by revoking the special status to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 and 35-A, it showed that there is no difference in what the party says and does. But the neighboring country does not understand this, he added.

Speaking about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Howdy, Modi’ event in Houston where he addressed a rally of thousands of Indian-Americans along with US President Donald Trump, Singh said it made every Indian proud. “You must have seen ‘Howdy, Modi’ on TV. Did not it swell your chest with pride?” Singh asked. He said the sense of pride one would feel when PM Modi “with a 56-inch chest” and Trump, the President of the “most powerful” country, clasped hands and walked across the stage was similar among Indians when Swami Vivekananda made the speech in Chicago in 1893.