Will retaliate against India in equal measure: Pak defence minister

ISLAMABAD: A day after defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman warned that Islamabad will have to pay for the terror attack on

Sunjuwan Army

camp in Jammu, her Pakistani counterpart

Khurram Dastagir Khan

ratcheted up rhetoric against India and threatened to retaliate in equal measure.

Vowing to strongly defend every inch of Pakistani soil, Khan told media, “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.”

Dastagir said India’s “knee-jerk reaction” to blame Pakistan for the terror attack on Sunjuwan camp, in which six Indian soldiers were killed, was without substantial evidence. He alleged that the “subversive activities” of

Kulbushan Jadhav

in Pakistan proved that India was involved in “state-sponsored espionage and terror”.

The Pakistan minister also held India responsible for the killings of 42 Pakistanis in the Samjhauta Express terror attack 11 years ago. “India is destabilising regional peace in word and deed through irresponsible statements on nuclear deterrent and through its five-fold escalation in attacks on unarmed civilians on the Line of Control and working boundary,” the minister said.

“Pakistan’s armed forces are alive to all possibilities, and fully prepared to defend the country’s territorial sovereignty and integrity,” he added.

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, Dastagir said.

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