Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday warned that if bullets are fired from across the Line of Control (LOC) by Pakistani troops, these will be replied by bomb shells, and not dialogue.

“Goli will be responded with Gola,” he said, while addressing a poll rally in favour of the BJP candidate Murtaza Khan in Poonch district’s Mendhar town along the LOC with the Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK).

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Shah arrived here on Friday evening for three days campaigning. Besides Mendhar, he also addressed rallies in other border towns of Surankot, Thanamandi, Rajouri and Akhnoor.

He said there is peace along the borders in Jammu and Kashmir as Pakistan fears Prime Minister Narendra Modi and would not dare to open fire.

He said: “The days of cross-border firing are over. Pakistan is now afraid of PM Modi. There were times when the people in power here were afraid of Pakistan. The situation has completely changed.”

“I want to remind you of cross-border firings in the 1990s. Is cross-border firing happening today,” he asked.

Shah said “I am from Gujarat and I could never think that I could address people in Mendhar just 2 km away from the LOC.

Praising the Gujjar, Bakarwal and Pahari communities of Rajouri and Poonch districts, Shah said they have always stood as soldiers whenever there was a war with Pakistan after 1947.

“The entire country is proud of you. I appeal to you to join hands with PM Narendra Modi to protect the country.”

Hitting out at the three families—Abdullahs, Muftis and Congress—Shah asked the people to end their domination in the ongoing assembly elections. They stopped democracy from taking roots in J&K.

The first phase of polling is over and I can say with certainty that the National Conference-Congress alliance is not coming to power in J&K, Shah asserted.

During the regime of Farooq Abdullah and the Mufti family, more than 40,000 innocent people became targets of terrorists and were killed. Modi has eliminated terrorism and we have given laptops in the hands of the youth who were earlier pelting stones. Terrorism will return if the Congress-NC alliance comes to power, he warned.

The Home Minister said that the NC was against reservation to the Pahari community, but the BJP granted them 10 per cent reservation in jobs and we will also make reservation for them in promotions.

Addressing another rally at Thanamandi, Shah said the area did not develop as the NC and Congress deprived these areas from development.