Will pay back India in own coin, claims Pakistan Defence Minister

Pakistan Defence Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan on Tuesday warned that any aggression from New Delhi will be met with an equal and proportionate response.

Khan was quoted as saying by Dawn News, "Pakistan will pay [back] India in its own coin in case of any misadventure."

His statement comes in response to Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who said that militants who killed five soldiers and a civilian at an Army camp in Jammu were Pakistanis and warned that Islamabad will pay a price for the terror attack.

"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. We will defend robustly every inch of Pakistan's soil, Dastgir warned.

"Instead of the knee-jerk reaction of blaming Pakistan without substantiation,India must answer for state-sponsored espionage against Pakistan. Living evidence in person of Kulbushan Yadev is in front of the world," he further said.

He added that India had failed to deliver justice to the 42 Pakistanis that were murdered in the Samjhauta Express terrorism eleven years ago this week.

"India is destabilizing regional peace in word and deed; through irresponsible statements on nuclear deterrent and through its bloody, five-fold escalation in 2017 of attacks on unarmed civilians on the line-of-control and working boundary," Dastgir said.

On Monday, Sitharaman in a direct attack on Islamabad said that "Terrorists belon¬ged to Jaish-e-Mohammed, sponsored by Azhar Masood residing in Pakistan and der¬iving support from there in.

On Sunday, Pakistan's foreign ministry had strongly rejected similar allegations voiced by the Indian media.

"A particular section in the Indian media runs with their innuendos to malign Pakistan and whips up public frenzy. We are confident that the world community would take due cognisance of India's smear campaign against Pakistan, and the deliberate creation of war hysteria," the foreign ministry statement had said.

OneIndia News