ISLAMABAD: Director General (DG) of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Asif Ghafoor on Saturday dismissed a bellicose statement by India’s Army Chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane as “routine rhetoric” for domestic consumption, saying that Pakistan was quite capable of responding to any act of aggression from across the border.

The Indian general said in a recent statement that he would comply with the orders of his country’s parliament if it required him to send his troops to Azad Kashmir and capture the territory.

Responding to the belligerence of the Indian army chief, Ghafoor said that Pakistan was ready to thwart any enemy action, though he attributed General Naravane’s assertion to his attempt to divert attention from his country’s prevailing political environment.

Statements by Indian COAS to undertake military action across LOC are routine rhetoric for domestic audiences to get out of ongoing internal turmoil.
Pakistan Armed Forces are fully prepared to respond to any act of Indian aggression.

— DG ISPR (@OfficialDGISPR) January 11, 2020

India and Pakistan have fought several wars with each other since Partition in August 1947. However, their relationship hit a new low after a suicide bomber targeted India’s paramilitary troops in Pulwama on February 14, killing more than 40 soldiers.

India blamed the incident on Pakistan and sent its warplanes across the Line of Control on February 26 in an attempt to destroy a religious seminary – that it claimed was a militant training camp – in Balakot.

The next day, Pakistan shot down an Indian fighter jet in the Kashmir region and captured a pilot who was later returned to his country as a gesture of peace.

India also revoked the special constitutional status of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, 2019, trying to annex the only Muslim-majority state within the federation with the rest of the country by removing its limited political autonomy. The residents of the region have since been living under a near-total security lockdown and communications blackout.

The recent developments in India have further strained relations between the two South Asian nuclear neighbors, making them exchange thorny political statements in a hostile regional environment.