On 15th May Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh visited the Badami Bagh Cantonment in Jammu and Kashmir, amid the ongoing India-Pakistan tensions. The Indian Defence Minister launched a scathing attack at Pakistan a couple of days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that India would not tolerate “nuclear blackmail” from Islamabad. The former additionally urged for global intervention regarding Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.
“The world knows that our army’s aim is accurate and when they hit the target, they leave the counting to the enemies. How strong is India’s pledge against terrorism today, it can be known from the fact that we did not even care about their nuclear blackmail. The whole world has seen how irresponsibly Pakistan has threatened India. Today, from the land of Srinagar, I want to raise this question whether nuclear weapons are safe in the hands of such an irresponsible and rogue nation,” Rajnath Singh said.
He added, “I believe that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons should be taken under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).” The defence minister arrived at the 15 Corps Headquarters of the army in Srinagar and engaged with military personnel during his inaugural trip to the valley following “Operation Sindoor“.
Pakistan – Terror’s breeding ground where terrorists are heroes
The ties between Pakistan and terrorist organizations are not a secret. From former President General Pervez Musharraf to the current Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif, senior Pakistani officials have consistently acknowledged their ties to terrorists which are strategically leveraged as assets of foreign policy by the country.
“In the 1990s, the freedom struggle began in Kashmir. At that time, Lashkar-e-Taiba and 11 or 12 other organisations were formed. We supported them and trained them as they were fighting in Kashmir at the cost of their lives. The Kashmiri freedom fighters including Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi were our heroes at that time,” Musharraf disclosed in an interveiw with Dunya News in 2015.
Pakistan’s president conceded that Kashmiris were trained and backed by Pakistan as Mujahideen to oppose the Indian Army in Jammu and Kashmir and stated, “Kashmiris who came to Pakistan received a hero reception here.” He further remarked that dreaded terrorists including Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Jalaluddin Haqqani and others were celebrated in Pakistan.
“In 1979, we had introduced religious militancy in Afghanistan to benefit Pakistan and to push the Soviets out of the country. We brought Mujahideen from all over the world, we trained them and supplied weapons to them. We trained the Taliban, sent them in. They were our heroes. Jalaluddin Haqqani, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri were our hero. Then the global environment changed. The world started viewing things differently. Our heroes were turned into villains,” he expressed with much disappointment.
Osama bin Laden was declared a martyr (shaheed) even by former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan Niazi. “For Pakistanis across the globe, it was an embarrassing moment when the Americans came and killed Osama bin Laden at Abottabad, martyred him,” he bemoaned in the country’s parliament in 2021.
“It’s all over social media” fame Khawaja Asif, the defence minister of Pakistan, recently admitted that the nation has a history of supporting, training and financing terrorist organizations, referring to it as “dirty work” for Western interests. “We have been doing this dirty work for the United States for about three decades, you know, and the West, including Britain,” he stated in an interview to Sky News.
Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, the former foreign minister of Pakistan, also accepted the country’s history regarding the funding of radical outfits, reflecting recent statements from the defence minister. “I don’t think that it’s a secret that Pakistan has a past as far as extremist groups are concerned. We’ve gone through wave after wave of extremism. We went through the Islamisation and militarisation of our society,” he outlined while talking to Sky News.
Pakistan has publicly recognized its history of harboring terrorists, but it also strives to cast itself as a victim of terrorism. However, the facts tell a different story.
Caught in bed with their proxies
Pakistan may persist in its denial and offer justifications, yet the reality is that the nation employs a policy of “bleeding India by a thousand cuts” through its terrorist proxies. The terrorist attacks in India, including the tragic 26/11 attack in Mumbai in 2008, 2019 Pulwama attack and the recent assault in Pahalgam, are indicative of Islamabad’s involvement. In fact, Pakistan boasts about its role in perpetrating terrorism against India, as indicated by its leaders.
“Humne Hindustan ko ghus ke mara hai wahaan pe. Pulwama main jo humari kamyabi hai, woh Imran Khan ki leadership mein is Qaum ki kamyabi hai (We entered India and killed. Our success in Pulwama, under the leadership of Imran Khan, is a victory of our community),” Former Minister of Information and Broadcasting of Pakistan Fawad Chaudhry announced in the country’s national assembly in 2020. “Uske hissedar aap aur hum sab hai (all of us are party to it),” he added with pride.
Air Vice Marshal Aurangzeb Ahmed of Pakistan had described the Pulwama attack as a demonstration of tactical brilliance. “If Pakistan’s land, skies, or waters are threatened, there will be no compromise. We tried to convey this with our tactical brilliance in Pulwama, and now we’ve shown our strategic skills too,” he commented while addressing media during the recent India-Pakistan conflict.
The Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations for the Pakistan Army, Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif even asserted that jihad is fundamentally embedded in their policy. Notably, the Pakistan Army has historically aligned itself with Islamic principles and functions under the motto “Iman, Taqwa, Jihad fi Sabilillah” (faith, piety and fight in the name of Allah).
The declaration from the DG-ISPR reaffirms the military’s position that jihad is fundamental to its operations. Interestingly, terrorists maintain that they are also waging jihad against India. The resemblance between the two integral parts of the Islamic Republic and their operational methods are fairly obvious.
India continues to expose Pakistan
High-ranking officials from Pakistan joined the funeral of terrorists who were neutralised during India’s precision strikes on 7th May under “Operation Sindoor.” The Pakistan Army’s senior brass attended a funeral for terrorists killed in Muridke (base of Lashkar-e-Taiba) and Bahawalpur (headquarters of Jaish-e-Mohammed), according to the defense ministry.
Lieutenant General Rajiv Ghai, Director General of Military Operations (DGMO), Air Marshal AK Bharti, Vice Admiral AN Pramod and Major General SS Sharda spoke at a press conference on “Operation Sindoor” in New Delhi and released the names of prominent army officials of Pakistan who were observed at the final rites of the eliminated terrorists.
- DGMO showcased a photograph of Lieutenant General Fayyaz Hussain Shah who was spotted at the gathering. He was named Commander of the Pakistan Army’s IV Corps in Lahore. He was granted the second-highest civilian honor, the Hilal-e-Imtiaz (Military), which is bestowed by the government on both civilians and military officers.
- Major General Rao Imran Sartaj, a member of the Corps of Artillery who was assigned to command 11 Infantry Divisions (GOC 11 Inf Div) at Lahore was seen mourning the terrorists.
- Brigadier Muhammad Furqan Shabbir, commander of the 15th Hybrid Mechanized Brigade of the Pakistan Army in Lahore was also in attendance.
- Dr Usman Anwar who serves as Punjab’s Inspector-General of Police from 2023 was also present. He was previously deployed to Punjab as an Additional Inspector General Special Branch, in addition to his roles as District Police Officer (DPO) Okara and DPO Sargodha.
- There was also Malik Sohaib Ahmed Bherth, a member of the Punjab Provincial Assembly who serves as the Minister of Works and Communication and also has the position of Minister of Law.
India raises valid concerns
The fact that Pakistan, a country infested with terrorism, possesses nuclear weapons has alarmed several world leaders. There are an estimated 170 nuclear weapons in Pakistan. Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and the potential for them to end up in the wrong hands have been a source of anxiety for the country’s own leaders.
In 2011, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, the former foreign minister, stated that President Asif Ali Zardari’s administration was not trustworthy with regard to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. Former President Pervez Musharraf created the Nuclear Command and Control Authority (NCCA) in February 2000 to mitigate Western fears that the country’s nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of extremists.
Dr. AH Nayyar, a physics professor at an Islamabad university, criticized the move in an Al Jazeera report, stating that it was uncertain if NCCA would actually reduce the likelihood of a “accidental launch.”
Former United States President Joe Biden called Pakistan “one of the most dangerous nations in the world” in 2022 because of its nuclear weapons and lack of cohesion. He was expressing long-standing fears about the possibility of internal instability jeopardizing Pakistan’s nuclear assets.
Former US National Security Advisor John Bolton also expressed fears that terrorists would seize control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons as a result of the Taliban’s return in Afghanistan. He asserted that nuclear security is seriously threatened by unrest in the region.
Tom Cooper, world renowned military historian from Austria, recently stated that Pakistan’s failure to defend its nuclear storage sites during the Indian bombings exposed serious security flaws. He underlined that these vulnerabilities generated substantial reservations about Pakistan’s ability to protect its nuclear weapons from any threats, both internal and external, including India.
The US emphasized the importance of maintaining open lines of communication with Islamabad in 2011 due to worry that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and technology could end up in the hands of terrorists. “It’s a country with an awful lot of terrorists on that border. Things that I fear in the future, it’s the proliferation of that technology, and it’s the opportunity and the potential that it could fall into the hands of terrorists, many of whom are alive and well and seek that in that region,” Mike Mullen Chairman retired admiral and US Joint Chiefs of Staff pointed out.
A senior US official in 2017 unveiled that the Trump administration had been concerned that nuclear weapons and materials in Pakistan might wind up in the control of terrorist organizations and the development of tactical weapons only contributed to it. According to the senior Trump administration official, the nuclear threat in the area was one of the primary subjects that constantly came up for discussion during a comprehensive assessment and is crucial to the US.
At a political rally in 2023, Captain Muhammad Safdar, a Pakistani politician and the son-in-law of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, stated that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons were meant for the “whole Muslim world.” This statement was perceived by Indian intelligence agencies as a sign of negligent management of nuclear assets, implying that they were in “unsafe and irresponsible hands.”
Furthermore, concerns have been exacerbated by the threatening remarks of Pakistani leaders. Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad, former Railway Minister of Pakistan in 2020 warned that Islamabad had, “very small, calculated and perfect bombs to target India all the way up to Assam, but in a way that Muslims are not harmed.” A year earlier he claimed, “Pakistan has as small as 125-250-gram atom bombs also, which may hit (and destroy) a targeted area.”
This illustrates the comprehension and gravity with which a prominent Pakistani minister speaks in regard to such a critical subject. They try to employ it as a strategy to threaten India, but ultimately disclose the fragility of their nuclear arsenal under the control of such irresponsible leaders.
Moreover, Pakistan has consistently referred to its nuclear weapons as the “Islamic bomb.” During General Musharraf’s regime, Pakistan was implicated in the sale of this technology.
Pakistan frequently threatens New Delhi with nuclear action in response to retaliatory measures following terrorist attacks. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has now stated that such nuclear blackmail will not be tolerated. However, it is crucial to acknowledge that the existence of such a formidable and devastating weapon in the possession of Islamabad, a rogue entity, indeed endangers the safety, security, and future of the world.
Therefore, should not the global community unite to defang the snake, allowing the world to breathe freely without the constant fear of nuclear warfare? Pakistan might not feel as empowered to commit acts of terrorism in the absence of free access to its nuclear weapons. Would it not create a significantly safer environment for all, including Pakistan?
Rajnath Singh’s statement hold significant value and it has become very important for the world to take his words into consideration.
