Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that he fears “another security incident” with India ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
“I’m still apprehensive before the (Indian) elections, I feel that something could happen,” The News International quoted Khan as telling the Financial Times.
“When Pulwama happened, I felt that Modi’s government used that to build this war hysteria,” he added, referring to the February 14 suicide bombing at Pulwama in Kashmir which killed over 44 CRPF troopers.
“The Indian public should realise that this is all for winning the election, it’s nothing to do with the real issues of the sub-continent.”
Imran Khan said that tensions were still high even after the Pulwama attack, claimed by the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorist group.
Following the Pulwama terror attack, India carried out “pre-emptive airstrikes targeting JeM’s biggest training camp in Pakistan, which retaliated the next day with bombing sorties. An Indian pilot was captured by Pakistan but was later released.
Khan’s comments come on a day when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that India has become the fourth country in the world to become a space power capable of taking out an enemy satellite in space.
In the Mission Shakti operation, the indigenously-built anti-satellite ASAT missile successfully destroyed a target satellite in the Low Earth Orbit (LWO), the PM announced.
Though the message was clear to all of India’s adversaries, the PM assured the global community that the technology will not be used “against anyone”.
The Ministry of External Affairs in its statement also said that India’s space capabilities do not threaten any country nor are they directed against anyone.
Reiterating PM Modi’s words, the MEA said the government was committed to ensuring the country’s national security interests and is alert to threats from emerging technologies.
(With inputs from IANS)