Islamabad has rejected the Indian claim that alleged terror camps in Balakot had been reactivated as “baseless” and said it “reflects a desperate attempt to divert international attention from the humanitarian nightmare in occupied Kashmir being perpetrated by Indian occupation forces”.
The purported terror camp was bombed by Indian Air Force fighter jets in a predawn aerial strike on 27 February. The “surgical strike” was in retaliation for a suicide attack claimed by Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists on a convoy of Indian troops in Pulwama, Kashmir that killed 40 servicemen on 14 February.
"Balakot has been reactivated by Pakistan very recently. That shows that Balakot has been affected. It had been damaged and destroyed. And that is why people have got away from there and now it has been reactivated", Indian General Bipin Rawat told reporters on the sidelines of an event at the Officers Training Academy, in the southern city of Chennai.
Relations between the two nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours have nosedived since then, and reached a flashpoint when India stripped the disputed Jammu and Kashmir state of its special quasi-autonomous status.
Islamabad rejected the Indian move, calling it a direct violation of the 1972 Simla Agreement.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan warned on 23 September that the “crisis is going to get much bigger than what is happening in Kashmir”. He was talking to journalists after a meeting with US President Donald Trump.
President Trump said Pakistan & India has to agree on mediation but India is refusing to talk to us. In this situation I feel this is the beginning of the crisis. I honestly feel that this crisis is going to get much bigger than what is happening in Kashmir: Imran Khan#PMIKinUSA pic.twitter.com/aAM3ATyg8c
— Govt of Pakistan (@pid_gov) September 23, 2019
Kashmir has been a bone of contention between the India and Pakistan, since they gained independence from British colonial rule in 1947. Both control part of Kashmir, and both claim in full. The countries have fought three wars since then, two over Kashmir.
