PoK will join India: Rajnath

Jammu: Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) is, was and will remain a part of India and the Pakistan government will achieve nothing by repeatedly claiming PoK, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Monday. He emphasized that illegal occupation of PoK does not make locus standi of Pakistan. "A unanimous resolution has been passed in Parliament regarding PoK that it is a part of India only. Not one but at least three proposals of this intention have now been passed in the Parliament," Singh said.

Defence Minister was addressing a "security conclave" organized at Jammu University on internal and external dimensions of the country's defence mechanism, with a particular focus on J-K.

“A large part of Jammu and Kashmir is under the occupation of Pakistan. People on other side are seeing that people are living their lives peacefully in J-K. People living in POK going through a lot of suffering and they will raise demand to go with India,” Singh said.

Speaking on the abrogation of Article 370 in J-K, he said that BJP abrogated the article and did justice to the people of Jammu and Kashmir who were been unfairly treated for decades.

“Because of Article 370 and 35A, the common people of Jammu and Kashmir were kept away from the mainstream of the country for a long time, it was a hindrance in taking action against any anti-national force,” he said.

He further said that the general public is happy with the decision of abrogation of Article 370. “The trouble is only for those whose shop of hatred and separatism is getting closed,” Singh said. “We have managed to stop the funding of terrorism, stopped the supply of weapons and drugs and along with the elimination of terrorists, the work of dismantling the network of underground workers working here is also going on,” he added.