Balakot air strike did not happen in Pakistan: Sharad Pawar

Mumbai: Former Union minister for defence and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar has slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s comment about ‘hitting the enemy in his home’ in the Balakot air strike. Mr Pawar claimed that such attacks actually took place in Kashmir and not in Pakistan.

Taking about the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) thumping Lok Sabha election victory, the veteran leader said that “cultural communalism” had helped the BJP politically. He warned that one community standing against another was dangerous for the country’s social harmony.

During the BJP’s Lok Sabha poll campaign, Prime Minister Modi, the star campaigner, had said “ghar mein ghus ghus ke marenge” (we will enter the terrorists’ homes and eliminate them). He had made these remarks after the Indian Air Force targeted a Jaish-e-Mohammed terror camp in Pakistan’s Balakot following a suicide bomber from the proscribed organisation ramming his explosives-laden vehicle into a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) convoy in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama on February 14, killing 40 jawans.

During a live chat with people on Facebook from his office in Mumbai, the NCP president stated that the public used to like when Mr Modi, during his poll campaign and rallies, said his government would enter the houses of enemies and kill them. However, he was quick to claim that the attacks that had taken place “did not happen in Pakistan, but in Kashmir. And Kashmir is a part of India”.

“Hence, whatever steps the Modi government took to put a check on activities in Kashmir, that does not mean you entered Pakistan,” he said. “People do not have information about the Line of Control (LoC) and the situation there. So, they felt some action had been taken against Pakistan,” he stated.