SRINAGAR: India’s goal is to reclaim areas such as Gilgit and Baltistan in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) in accordance with a resolution passed unanimously in Parliament in 1994, defence minister Rajnath Singh said Thursday, reasserting a long-held pitch that these places are “under illegal occupation of Pakistan”. He also called out Islamabad for atrocities committed in the occupied territories.
“We have just begun our journey of development in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. We will achieve our goal when we reach Gilgit and Baltistan,” Singh said while speaking at the Shaurya Diwas or Infantry Day celebrations to commemorate the air-landing of Indian soldiers at Budgam airstrip in Srinagar on October 27, 1947.
It was the first military operation of independent India, a move that changed the course of the India-Pakistan war in 1947-48 in which Indian troops repelled invading armed tribesmen and military conscripts from taking over Kashmir Valley.
Accusing Pakistan of torturing and harassing the people of PoK, he said Islamabad “is sowing the seeds of hatred…and time is not far when people will resort to mass rebellion there”.
Eye on Pakistan: Rajnath says India will achieve its goals ‘when it reaches Gilgit-Baltistan’