New Delhi: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday attended the ‘Shaurya Diwas’ programme organised by the Indian Army in Budgam on the 76th Infantry Day.
Addressing the event, Rajnath Singh said that Pakistan was committing atrocities against people in PoK, and that they will have to bear its consequences, news agency PTI reported.
By giving so-called special status to J-K, even rights for basic things were taken away, the minister said at the Infantry Day event.
Discrimination against the people of Jammu and Kashmir ended under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi on August 5, 2019. We have just begun our development journey in J&K and Ladakh, he added in reference to the abrogation of Article 370.
The Defence Minister stressed that terrorism has no religion, the only aim of terrorists is to target India. “The ‘tandav’ of terrorism that J-K has seen in name of Kashmiriyat cannot be described,” PTI quoted him as saying.
In Kashmir’s context, he remarked that “so-called intellectuals cried human rights violations over actions against terrorists in last few years.”
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As per news agency ANI, Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha was also present at the event.
Rajnath Singh visited an exhibition by the Indian Army at the occassion.
Infantry Day is observed as a remembrance of the first military event of independent India, when the Indian Army repelled the first attack on Indian soil on October 27, 1947, in the Kashmir valley. The victory was accomplished by the personnel of the First Battalion of the Sikh Regiment. The 1st Battalion of the Sikh Regiment landed at Srinagar airbase and displayed resoluteness and extraordinary courage to thwart the designs of the Pakistan Army, who had invaded Kashmir with the help of tribal raiders in 1947.
This year both the Indian Army and the Air Force are going to celebrate this special day as “Shaurya Diwas” because Thursday is also the golden jubilee celebration of the Indian Air Force’s Kashmir Air Base.
Later in the day, Rajnath Singh will reach Leh on a two-day visit to the Union Territory of Ladakh.
Rajnath Singh has been the second top Union minister to visit Jammu and Kashmir this month. Earlier, Union Home minister Amit Shah was on a three-day visit to the Union Territory from October 4.