India on Thursday said Jammu and Kashmir is a union territory of India and its only relation with Pakistan is vacation of illegally occupied territory by that country, in a strong reaction to the Pakistan army chief General Asim Munir’s statement that Kashmir is Islamabad’s “jugular vein".
Reacting to this, the ministry of external affairs said: “How can anything foreign be in a jugular vein? This is a union territory of India. Its only relationship with Pakistan is the vacation of illegally occupied territories by that country."
At the Overseas Pakistanis Convention in Islamabad earlier, Pakistan Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Gen Asim Munir said: “Our stance is absolutely clear, it was our jugular vein, it will be our jugular vein, we will not forget it. We will not leave our Kashmiri brothers in their heroic struggle."
Gen Munir also pushed the two-nation theory as he stressed that India and Pakistan are two different nations and Pakistanis are different from Hindus in terms of their culture, ideologies, and more. “Our forefathers thought we are different from Hindus in every possible aspect of life. Our religions are different, our customs are different, our traditions are different, our thoughts are different, our ambitions are different. That was the foundation of the two-nation theory that was laid there. We are two nations, we are not one nation," he said.
He further said every Pakistani native should narrate the story of how the nation was born, to their children, and that the “story of Pakistan should never be forgotten". “You have to narrate Pakistan’s story to your children so that they don’t forget it when our forefathers thought we were different from Hindus in every possible aspect of life," he added.
