Indian Army strikes give befitting response to Islamabad's mischief, says Jitendra Singh

The Narendra Modi government has taken decisive steps against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, Union minister Jitendra Singh said on Saturday.

He stated that the two most recent examples are the decision of 'remonetisation,' which has drastically reduced terror-related transactions, preceded by the military strike inside Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir.

Addressing a conference on 'Countering Pakistan State Terror,' Singh said Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in the context of Jammu and Kashmir is a cumulative effect of a series of misdoings of the past six decades.

"If only the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had allowed the then Home Minister Sardar Patel to handle J&K, the history of the Indian subcontinent would have been different," he said.

When the Modi government took over in May 2014, Singh said, it bequeathed a huge baggage of cumulative liabilities from the past. There was a feeling of pessimism all over the country, but within two years, he said, not only the common man in India is feeling proud to be an Indian, but the Indians settled abroad are also looking forward for an opportunity to return to their motherland.

"This itself is a vindication of the kind of redemption which the government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has succeeded in bringing about in just two-and-a-half years," he added.

Singh said following remonetisation, there is a 60 percent dip in terror-related activities and 50 percent reduction in terror-related Hawala transactions being funded by Pakistan. Not only this, at least two printing press units in Pakistan, which were printing fake Indian currency and pumping into India have been compelled to shut down, he added. "Similarly, incidents of stone-pelting in Jammu and Kashmir have also gone down drastically," he said.

Singh said decisions like the surgical strike and remonetisation have hit the "Achilles' heel" of Pakistan and these are some of the decisive steps which no government in the past dared to take. He also referred to the government's stand on Baluchistan and said, for the first time, the Indian forces have had the opportunity to give befitting retaliatory response to every act of mischief from Pakistan.