Parrikar: Pak ‘Bhashmasur’ out of control

Expressing grief and sympathy over the loss of about 60 lives in a militant attack on Tuesday on a police training academy in Pakistan’s Quetta, defence minister Manohar Parrikar said Pakistan is being hit back hard by its own creation.

Citing the example of Indian mythology’s Bhashmasur, an “asura” or fiend who turned his killing gaze unto himself thereby turning himself into ashes, Mr Parrikar, while making it clear that he was not likening Pakistan to Bhashmasur, said: “You need to be able to control anything that the state does. Non-state actors should not be supported by any country. That is crux of our security doctrine. We have said that non-state actors, who are involved in terrorism, should be curtailed. Sometimes it bounces on you also. I think this is one of such event”. “But I regret the loss of lives and my sympathies are with the people who lost their lives. Terrorism anywhere and in any form cannot be justified. We don’t believe in violence and this kind of violence,” he said on the sidelines of the Naval Commanders’ meet.