DG ISPR warns India against any misadventure

RAWALPINDI: Pakistan military spokesperson, Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (DG-ISPR) Major General Asif Ghafoor on Monday warned India to refrain from any misadventure against Pakistan, ARY News reported.

“Keep this in your mind, this is not 1971. The Pakistani military is fully capable of a befitting response through the support of its 207 million nation. You had once said that the nuclear assets were not for Diwali. You may test us as we are fully prepared.”

“India should remember the fate of its fighter jets before thinking for any misadventure against Pakistan,” he warned.

Major General Asif Ghafoor was addressing a press conference in Rawalpindi over national security and escalation between Pakistan and India.

Ghafoor, in its opening statement, said, “This press conference aims to brief the current scenario of overall national security and recent escalation between Pakistan and India.”

“We had earlier talked about tensions between both countries on February 21 when allegations were levelled by India after Pulwama attack. We’d replied New Delhi that Pakistan has no involvement in Pulwama attack,” he said.

“[Later,] India had violated our border which was responded from the Pakistani side. Two months are spent after February but India is continuously lying [on this issue].”

“Pakistan is a responsible state which brought up the truth. Our country is consistently delivering truth and it will continue the same pattern in future as well,” he clarified.

While reminding previous attacks carried out in India, the spokesperson reminded that terror attacks on police officials took place in the past, whenever it goes through its elections’ phase.

“We had facilitated local and foreign journalists to visit the area which was claimed to be attacked by India and casualties of 300 people. However, India had stepped back from its statement for this claim.”

Mr Ghafoor offered India to provide a live demonstration of the missile which drills into roof before explosions to prove its claims.

He added, “The whole world has witnessed that we have shot down two Indian fighter jets over violation of ceasefire line in the daylight. On the other hand, India had crashed its own M-17 helicopter due to hear of Pakistan Air Force (PAF) and later vanished it.”

“Not only vanishing it, but the neighbouring country had also disappeared its black box besides pushing its inquiry into delay after elections.”

He further said, “We had already clarified that Pakistan captured one pilot but not two. We will reveal further details regarding ammunition storages to the world soon.”

He slammed India over running propaganda against Pakistan. Ghafoor said, “India had claimed to change the attitude of Pakistan, now the world is witnessing changes in its own behaviour. You [India] have now conferring awards to your soldiers like us. Even, you have used our song for your election campaign.”

War against terrorism

The spokesperson said that Pakistan has gained many achievements in the war against terrorism but it has to do much more in this regards.

He said, “Pakistan was moving towards its prosperity phase during the 1960-70’s era and our  Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was more than 11 per cent at that time. However, some certain events pushed Pakistan to the current situation.”

DG ISPR said Pakistan had faced the major dispute of the occupied Jammu and Kashmir after its emergence on the world’s map. “Kashmir exists in us and blood of Kashmiris are running in our veins. Pakistan desires provision of self-determination right to Kashmiris.”

Ghafoor said, “A wave of proxy war initiated in our region by Saudi Arabia, Iran and some other countries after Russia’s attack on Afghanistan which created the situation of jihad.

“Not only this, economic war had been initiated in this region where America attempted to influence economic policies of Pakistan on its terms and conditions, whereas, India, Russia and other countries had its own interests.”

“Later, a Hindutva movement had gained popularity in Hindu which troubled Muslims to live peacefully.”

“In that situation, Pakistan had become an ideology and situation turned to this condition,”

“The element of terrorism had been created when international troops carried out operations in Afghanistan which also activated various factions including Daish, banned TTP [Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan] and other terror groups near Pakistan-Afghanistan border.”

“Pakistan conducted more than 9,000 Intelligence Based Operations (IBOs) to destroy the terrorists’ networks across the country. Now, we are saying this with concrete facts that no organised terrorist infrastructure exists in Pakistan. The country has made intelligence sharing with 70 international countries to conduct effective co-operation for countering the menace of terrorism.”

“During the operation, more than 70,000 lives were martyred and severe economic loss was suffered by the country.”

He further detailed that the government has devised a programme to control welfare set-up in order to control terror funding. “Besides government and private schools, 25 million children are enrolled in 25-30 thousand seminaries,” he said.

The government is now mainstreaming the seminaries while a committee was also constituted by the Prime Minister for changes in its curriculum to remove hatred content.”

“We are seriously focused on eliminating extremism besides taking steps to end the proxy war in the region.”

“Prime Minister has recently paid visits to Iran, China and other countries in this regards. Development work on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project is going through with full pace.”

Border fencing

The military spokesperson detailed that border fencing on the area 1,000 kilometres long on Pakistan-Afghanistan border which would be completed if the pace of work was maintained.

“Pakistan is getting benefits of border fencing as it significantly reduces cross-border attacks,” he added.

PTM movement

Asif Ghafoor, while answering a question, said that he has been engaged with the leadership of Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) after its foundations over special directives of the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa.

He admitted that terrorism has resulted in a significant loss in tribal areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). The Army Chief has directed not to adopt harsh behaviour with the people.

He said that the Pakistan Army was clearing mines from the tribal areas and more than 101 soldiers were martyred during the clearance phase.

Ghafoor clarified that the state has no difficulty to stop them but each step will be taken in accordance with the law and the Constitution.

He offered PTM and media persons to provide details of missing persons and serious efforts will be made to recover the people.

He said that the armed forces will continue taking necessary measures for the security of nationals.