Ready to give befitting reply: PM
Says India ‘never eyed someone else’s territory maliciously’
NEW DELHI: India “staunchly” believes in peace, but its soldiers will give a befitting reply to any attempt to destroy the country’s atmosphere of peace and progress, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday in his monthly radio talk show Mann ki Baat.
Citing the surgical strike carried out across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir in 2016, Modi showered praise on the armed forces, hailing their valour and glorious heritage. He added that Indians soldiers involved in the surgical strike “gave a befitting reply to the audacity of a proxy war under the garb of terrorism”. Modi indicated a wider policy on how to deal with adversaries of India’s peace and progress.
“It has now been decided that our soldiers will give a befitting reply to whosoever makes an attempt to destroy the atmosphere of peace and progress in our nation. We staunchly believe in peace; we are committed to taking it forward… but not at the cost of compromising our self-respect and sovereignty of our nation,” he said.
Modi’s comments came a day after foreign minister Sushma Swaraj lashed out at Pakistan at the United Nations General Assembly, dubbing the neighbour “an expert in trying to mask malevolence with verbal duplicity”. India also accused Pakistan of funding and glorifying terrorists — in an oblique reference to Jammu and Kashmir and slain militant Burhan Wani.
Last week, 25 hours after it was announced, India called off a proposed meeting between Swaraj and her Pakistan counterpart, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, citing the brutal killing of security personnel by Pakistan-based entities