COURTESY HT AUG 5

Political absurdity: India on Pak’s boundary map
FLASHPOINT: Islamabad claims all of J&K, part of Gujarat; ridiculous, says MEA

Rezaul H Laskar and Imtiaz Ahmad

letters@hindustantimes.com

New Delhi/Islamabad : India on Tuesday described as an “exercise in political absurdity” a new map issued by Pakistan that lay claim to the Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, and Junagadh in Gujarat state, on the eve of the first anniversary of the scrapping of J&K’s special status.

Releasing the political map during a meeting in Islamabad attended by his cabinet and senior officials, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said this was the first step towards a political struggle to achieve the right of self-determination for the Kashmiri people.

Hours later, India’s external affairs ministry described the “so-called ‘political map’ of Pakistan” released by Khan as “an exercise in political absurdity, laying untenable claims to territories in the Indian state of Gujarat and our Union Territories of J & K and of Ladakh”.

“These ridiculous assertions have neither legal validity nor international credibility. In fact, this new effort only confirms [the] reality of Pakistan’s obsession with territorial aggrandisement supported by cross-border terrorism,” the ministry said in a brief statement, repeating New Delhi’s assertion that Islamabad uses terror as an instrument of state policy.

Over the past few days, the Pakistani leadership has pulled out all stops to rake up the Kashmir issue ahead of the first anniversary of the Indian government’s decision on August 5, 2019 to scrap Jammu & Kashmir’s special status under Article 370 of the Constitution, and split the state into two UTs. Pakistan’s new map includes the whole of the UT of J&K as part of the country’s territory, describing it as “Indian illegally occupied J&K” and a “disputed territory” whose final status is to be decided in line with UN Security Council resolutions