Indian army chief with 'blood of innocents on his hands' seeks to become defence staff head: ISPR
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The Pakistan Army's media wing on Friday said that Indian army chief Bipin Rawat with "irresponsible statements" and "blood of innocents on his hand" seeks to become the Indian Chief of Defence Staff.
The Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) is a proposed position for the combined head of the Indian army, Indian air force and Indian navy. The creation of the post was announced by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his independence day speech in August.
Director general of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor said that Gen Rawat has been "repeatedly provoking war" through his statements, which threaten peace in the region, with the aim of facilitating "electioneering of political masters".
"From the fake surgical strike (on Feb 26) to date, his only success has been to turn Indian Army into a rogue force and getting them killed," said Maj Gen Ghafoor.
He said that Gen Rawat's statements, together with "blood of innocents (on his hands), losses to Indian forces at the hands of Pakistan Armed Forces, helicopter crashes due to so called technical fault-cum-fratricide" all to become the Indian CDS "is actually at the cost of professional military ethos".
The ISPR chief's remarks come just four days after his challenge to the Indian army to share locations of the alleged terror camps the latter had claimed to have targeted in Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
"Indians have no grounds to support [the] false claim made by their COAS.
"We will take foreign diplomats & media tomorrow on those given locations. Let all see facts on ground," he had said.
Subsequently, in a visit jointly organised by the Foreign Office and the Pakistan Army, a group of 23 diplomats was taken to Jura to witness the targets and the damage caused by Indian shelling in which six people, including a soldier, were martyred, while six others were injured.
India, on the other hand, neither allowed its diplomats based in Islamabad to visit the Line of Control (LoC) along with the group nor provided the coordinates of the alleged ‘terror launch pads’ it had claimed to hit.
