NEW DELHI: With simmering discontent in Kashmir rearing its head again New Delhi and Islamabad Thursday entered into verbal duals, accusing each other of fuelling the unrest.
The ratcheting up of the rhetoric have belied hopes of an early thaw in the bilateral relations as was expected post UP elections.
Jitendra Singh, MoS in Prime Minister Modis office accused Pakistani agencies of instigating youth in Kashmir through what he termed as false propaganda on social media.
Asking the civil society and government to make the youth understand the reality, instead of getting instigated by false propaganda Dr Singh appealed Kashmiri youth not to get carried away by such propaganda.
Minister told reporters in New Delhi that separatists were doing the politics of convenience.
There are leaders who want to instigate the youth of Kashmir Valley to indulge in activities like stone pelting and violence. But these very leaders want their own children to become IAS and IPS officers. They want their children to study in good schools. I feel that these leaders are doing the politics of convenience, he said.
Pakistan meanwhile has accused India of interfering in the country’s internal affairs and claimed that New Delhi was involved in financing terror activities in the region.
“The entire world knows that India is interfering in Pakistan’s internal matters,” said Foreign Office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria during a media briefing on Thursday. He said that “the arrest of Indian spy Kulbhushan Yadav from Pakistan’s soil is a proof of this”.
Indian national Kulbhushan Yadav was arrested in March 2016 in Balochistan on charges of being a RAW agent, fuelling the Baloch separatist movement and attempting to sabotage the CPEC project, Geo TV reported.
The Pakistan Foreign Office also came out in support of Kashmiris who, it said, were victims of “atrocities” by the Indian government.
“Indian troops are opening fire at funerals of Kashmiri martyrs,” spokesperson Zakaria said.
He asked the international community to urge India to stop the “genocide of innocent Kashmiris”, reports said.
Pakistan is deeply saddened, shocked and condemned the continued bloodshed of innocent and defenceless Kashmiris in Jammu and Kashmir.
To suppress the Kashmiris right to self-determination, India is using brute force and has embarked on a killing spree of Kashmiris, Zakaria said.
Referring to the Wednesdays civilian killing near the encounter site in Chadoora, he said, they martyred four Kashmiris, including three teenagers and injured scores. In a most despicable act, the Indian forces even opened live ammunition fire on those offering funeral prayers of the martyred.
This all happened at a time when the OICs Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC) was visiting AJK to gather personal account of those Kashmiris who suffered from Indian brutalities in IOK, Zakaria said.
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