FO condemns Indian home minister’s threat of ‘surgical strikes’

ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office (FO) on Thursday strongly condemned Indian Home Minister Amit Shah’s “irresponsible and provocative statement”, threatening Pakistan with “so-called surgical strikes”.

According to a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) termed the comments of the Indian minister as “delusional”, saying that such statements “only further demonstrate the inclination of BJP-RSS union to stir up regional tensions.

“This delusional statement only goes to further demonstrate the BJP-RSS combine’s propensity to stoke regional tensions for both ideological reasons and political expediency, based on enmity towards Pakistan,” said FO spokesperson Asim Iftikhar Ahmad.

The spokesperson further said these statements serve as “smokescreens to divert world attention from India’s state-terrorism and systematic human rights violations in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJ&K), and against Muslims and other minorities in India”.

“Pakistan has repeatedly drawn the attention of the international community to India’s sinister designs of staging ‘false flag’ operations to implicate Pakistan and Kashmiris,” the statement reiterated.

The ministry reminded of Pakistan’s action in the 2019 India–Pakistan standoff, what it called “India’s Balakot misadventure”, saying that no effort will be spared on Pakistan’s end to “thwart any aggressive designs”.

“Pakistan’s swift response to India’s Balakot misadventure in 2019, including the downing of Indian combat aircraft in Azad Kashmir and capture of Indian Air Force pilot Abhinandan Varthman, fully demonstrated the will, capacity and preparedness of our armed forces to deter Indian aggression,” he conlcuded.

Earlier today, Indian media reported Amit Shah as saying that India will carry out surgical strikes against Pakistan “if it transgresses”, adding that the time for talks was over and it was now time to “reciprocate”.

#WATCH | “Another important step was surgical strike under PM Modi & former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. We sent out a message that one should not disrupt India’s borders…There was a time when talks happened, but now is the time to reciprocate,” says Home Min Amit Shah pic.twitter.com/BrMFUfzLRT

— ANI (@ANI) October 14, 2021

“The surgical strike under Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former defence minister Manohar Parrikar was an important step. We sent out a message that no one can disturb India’s borders. There was a time for talks, but now is the time to reciprocate,” the report quoted Shah as saying.