We will pay back India in own coin, says defence minister

islamabad — A day after India’s Defence Minister warned that Pakistan would have to “pay” for a militant strike on an army camp in Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khurram Dastgir said on Tuesday that Islamabad will pay New Delhi in “its own coin in case of any Indian misadventure”.

He vowed to “defend robustly” every inch of Pakistan’s soil, and said: “Any Indian aggression, strategic miscalculation, or misadventure regardless of its scale, mode, or location will not go unpunished and shall be met with an equal and proportionate response.”

Dastgir said India has failed to deliver justice for the 42 Pakistanis who were murdered in the Samjhota Express 11 years ago.

He also said Pakistan’s armed forces are “alive to all possibilities, and prepared fully to defend our country’s territorial integrity”.

“An aggressive Pakistan centric doctrine and arrayed forces under a belligerent regime leading to a possible strategic miscalculation by India will seriously impact the strategic stability in South Asia,” he warned.

His statement was in response to Indian Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday claiming that militants who killed five soldiers and a civilian at an Army camp in Jammu were Pakistanis and had warned that Islamabad will pay a price for the terror attack.

“Pakistan will have to pay for this misadventure,” Sitharaman told reporters in Jammu. The deaths of “our soldiers won’t go in vain”. —

India has failed to deliver justice for the 42 Pakistanis who were murdered in the samjhota express 11 years ago Khurram Dastgir, defence minister