Bengaluru: Union minister Prakash Javadekar on Saturday said incidents like the attack on an Army patrol in Kashmir by terrorists were part of tactics by Pakistan, which knew it could not fight and win a conventional war with India.
“There are no two opinions. Pakistan knows that they cannot defeat India. They cannot fight a war against India and therefore what they are doing is, it is their strategy. But it will be defeated, even as they are isolated in the international forum,” he told reporters here.
Javadekar was replying to a query on terrorists opening fire on a patrol party of the Indian Army in Tral township of south Kashmir’s Pulwama district earlier in the day.
The Pakistani army also fired mortars and automatic weapons along Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district, where two persons were killed and three injured.
Javadekar said the nation believes in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership and recalled his warning after the Uri terror attack that it will not be forgotten and the sacrifice of 18 jawans will not go in vain.
“In the light of what Pakistan has been doing, including the beheading of two soldiers by Pakistan’s special forces along LoC, our Prime Minister had made it clear (after the Uri attack) that the sacrifice of the soldiers will not go in vain.”
“The nation believes in the Prime Minister,” he said.
He was also asked about Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of “spying”.
Javadekar said External?Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and others were looking into the matter. “Also, we have won the international court verdict.”
The Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) has stayed the execution of Jadhav following India’s submission that he was kidnapped from Iran where he was involved in business after retiring from the Navy.
—PTI