ISLAMABAD: Opposition leaders on Tuesday demanded of the government to summon a joint parliamentary session in the aftermath of India’s violation of the Line of Control (LoC).
As the National Assembly session resumed today, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) senior leader Khursheed Shah took to the floor and demanded that a joint parliamentary session be summoned.
“We are in a state of war. The Parliament should sit together and decide,” Shah said. Stating that “India wishes to exploit our internal differences and attack us,” Shah said, “We have to show to India and the world that the entire nation is united.”
Quoting the premier’s televised address to the nation last week, the PPP leader said, “We will not think if India initiates aggression and we should not even think.”
“India should know that jihad is a part of our faith,” Shah asserted. “The opposition is ready to stand on the border front and Pakistanis are ready to sacrifice their lives,” the PPP leader stated.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader and former defence minister Khawaja Asif also took to the floor and seconded Shah’s demand for a joint parliamentary session.
The PML-N leader also called on all parties to “be united” and to show solidarity with the armed forces. “Our country, our sovereignty and our integrity are being threatened,” Asif said.
“It is not the time for political point-scoring and we should put aside our differences and unite the entire nation,” he added. “We are standing behind our armed forces like an iron wall.”
“The entire nation will have to firmly issue a united response to India,” the former defence minister asserted. “We should not hesitate to help Kashmiris.”
Asif also slammed the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) for inviting Indian foreign minister Sushma Swaraj as a “guest of honour” at the inaugural session of the foreign ministers’ conclave in Abu Dhabi next month. “Pakistan should boycott the OIC meeting. It is an insult that our enemy is being invited as a guest of honour when Kashmiris are facing bloodshed,” he stated.
Former NA speaker Ayaz Sadiq also called on the government to raise the issue with OIC. “It [OIC] has no power to invite India without seeking the consent of member states,” Sadiq said.
Agreeing with the opposition’s demand for a joint parliament session, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf politician and former speaker Syed Fakhar Imam Shah said Pakistan has come at a crossroads where it has to decide whether to live with honour or otherwise.
“Today, the future of my country is at stake. Today, the people of Pakistan have to decide to either live with honour, or live otherwise. And I am sure my country will decide to live with honour,” Imam said in his strongly-worded address on the floor of the National Assembly.
“Now the time has come for Pakistan’s survival. This is nobody else’s war. This is Pakistan’s [war],” he said.
The PTI leader noted with regret that India was being led by the war-mongering Narendra Modi.
“India has had some great leaders. But unfortunately, Modi is their leader today,” he lamented, adding that the Hindutva’s mindset was exactly what Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah liberated the Muslims from when he founded Pakistan.
Indian military aircraft violated the LoC as they “intruded” from the Muzaffarabad sector and were forced to return owing to the timely response of the Pakistan Air Force, Pakistan Army spokesperson Major General Asif Ghafoor said early Tuesday.
“Indian aircraft intrusion across LoC in Muzafarabad Sector within AJK was 3-4 miles. Under forced hasty withdrawal aircraft released payload which had free fall in open area. No infrastructure got hit, no casualties. Technical details and other important information to follow,” Major General Ghafoor wrote on Twitter.
He also tweeted images of the “payload of hastily escaping Indian aircraft” which “fell in [the] open”.
The incursion into the Pakistani air space follows a series of threats by Indian political and military leadership following the attack on an Indian Army convoy at Pulwama by a local youth, in reaction to the oppression unleashed by the occupational forces.
