ISLAMABAD: The Senate on Monday condemned Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s anti-Pakistan diatribe after he recently branded Pakistan “the mothership of terrorism”.

“This house strongly condemns the statement of...Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attributing terrorism to Pakistan and drawing a parallel between India and Israel, evoking a parallel between Kashmir and Palestine, during the recently held BRICS Summit held in Goa, India,” said a resolution adopted unanimously on Monday.

The upper house appreciated the international community’s reaction to the Indian prime minister’s propaganda and noted that his statement was an effort to divert attention from the Indian atrocities against the people of India-held Kashmir.

The house reiterated that there could be no compromise on the sovereignty and defence of Pakistan and reaffirmed their resolve to fight terrorism and contribute towards peace and harmony in the world.

Later, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif warned India against misadventures, saying that any attempt to carry out a surgical strike would evoke a telling response.

Defence minister vows befitting response if India actually tries a ‘surgical strike’

Speaking on a motion concerning continued Indian ceasefire violations along the Line of Control (LoC) and Working Boundary, he said that the army returned fire each time India violated the ceasefire.

He termed the Indian army chief’s claim of conducting a surgical strike inside Pakistan “fake”.

“Let me assure the house and the people of Pakistan that if India ever tried a genuine strike, Pakistan’s armed forces would respond in a manner that India will forget its claims of false strikes,” he said.

The defence minister said that India had carried out a total of 330 violations, 290 along the LoC and 40 along the WB, until December 2016. He said that 45 civilians were killed and 138 injured in these incidents.

He said that an indigenous freedom movement was raging on in India-held Kashmir and that New Delhi was trying to equate the movement with terrorism and accusing Pakistan of waging a proxy war at various international fora.

The minister said that Pakistan was lending diplomatic, moral and political support to the Kashmiris and would continue to do so. He claimed that India wanted to evade the process of composite dialogue and its internal circumstances dictated that it should let tensions along the border persist, he said.

“India has some political compulsions, because phase-wise elections are around the corner,” he said. The minister said that keeping all these things in mind, Indian had staged the ‘drama’ of surgical strikes.

He said that Pakistan’s successes in the war on terror were crystal clear and recognised by the international community. India was afraid of Pakistan’s successes in this regard, he said.

For the last decade and a half, the US and other foreign countries were fighting a war in Afghanistan, but were far from success and the dangers of the rise of Daesh in that country were looming large, he said. Pakistan had successfully rooted out terrorists and their sanctuaries in North Waziristan, which was a great achievement, the defence minister said.

Khawaja Asif, who also holds the portfolio of water and power, said that Pakistan was negotiating violations of the Indus Water Treaty by India at the highest forums, including with the US government and the World Bank.

Winding up discussion on unemployment in the country, Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal rejected as propaganda that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) could become a 21st century East India Company.

He said this propaganda was being unleashed by certain elements who did not want the game-changing project to succeed.

He dispelled the impression that the Chinese were bringing their own labour and no employment opportunities would be provided for Pakistanis in the project. He said more than fifty per cent Pakistani engineers and workers were engaged in the project. He said Chinese had brought critical workforce to ensure that the timelines were met.

He said power generation capacity in Pakistan over the last sixty years was between 16,000-17,000 megawatts, but the present government had taken steps that would add another 11,000MW to the national grid. He said this would give impetus to the industrial sector, particularly to small and medium industries.

Underlining the need for innovation and research for rapid progress, he said 2017 had been declared a year of productivity, quality and innovation. He said the government had a clear roadmap for economic revival and referred to the steps taken for the revival of the textile industry.

The house also adopted a resolution asking the government to provide interest-free loans to farmers for installation of solar tube wells in the country. The Senate will meet again today (Tuesday) at 10am.

Published in Dawn January 17th, 2017