ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Sunday rejected the “unfounded remarks” made by the Indian external affairs minister in an interview with a French newspaper and during his interaction with certain other media outlets that the “situation is back to normal” in India-held Kashmir.

In a statement, the Foreign Office said the Indian minister’s outburst is yet another reflection of India’s characteristic hubris and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government’s well-known smear campaign against Pakistan.

The statement says it is deplorable that to further the RSS-BJP extremist ideological and nationalistic agenda, and to divert global attention from the gory reality in India-held Kashmir, senior Indian officials continue to manufacture “facts” both with regard to the issue of terrorism and the situation in the occupied valley. “If anything, Commander Kulbhushan Jadhav is the face of India’s “export” of terrorism to Pakistan,” it said.

Indian minister’s remarks that normalcy has returned to disputed territory rejected

It said that India’s frustration was evident from the fact that despite its relentless state-terrorism in held Kashmir for decades, it had failed to muzzle the peaceful voices of Kashmiri people and their demand for self-determination, promised to them in the United Nations Security Council resolutions.

“India also continues to be the safe haven for those preaching hate and carrying out hate crimes, including against its own minorities, with impunity and indeed under state patronage,” it said.

As regards the Indian minister’s farcical claim that the “situation is back to normal” in the occupied valley, the FO statement said the question is why this ‘normalcy’ is not visible to the outside world? “For India, there is no escape from the reality that its State-sponsored repression cannot break the will and indomitable spirit of the Kashmiri people.”

The statement said India would be well-advised to move away from its obsession with Pakistan and also from its continued denial of reality.

It said Pakistan, for its part, would continue to highlight the plight of the people of the occupied valley and reiterate its call for the peaceful resolution of the international dispute of Jammu & Kashmir.

It said as a country that had suffered the most from the cross-border terrorism, Pakistan would continue to contribute constructively to regional and global efforts to promote peace and prosperity in the region and beyond.

Published in Dawn, November 18th, 2019