WEB DESK / AMN
India’s foreign ministry rejected the new map of Pakistan terming it as ‘Political absurdity’
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan today released a new “political map of Pakistan” that counts Jammu and Kashmir and Junagadh in Gujarat as its territories. “This is the most historic day in Pakistan’s history,” Khan said at a news conference after getting cabinet approval for the map.
India’s foreign ministry rejected the new map of Pakistan terming it as ‘Political absurdity’
“This is an exercise in political absurdity, laying untenable claims to territories in the Indian State of Gujarat and our Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and of Ladakh. These ridiculous assertions have neither legal validity nor international credibility,” external affairs ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said in a brief statement.
“In fact, this new effort only confirms reality of Pakistan’s obsession with territorial aggrandisement supported by cross-border terrorism,” Srivastava said, referring to the ‘so-called political map’ released by Imran Khan.
An Indian official had earlier described Islamabad’s effort to publish the document as a “cartographic hallucination”.
Imran Khan’s move comes a day ahead of the first anniversary of the Indian government tabling in parliament the legislation to scrap Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and splitting the erstwhile state into two centrally-administered territories, Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
Imran Khan’s government has already worked out a long list of programmes to commemorate the first anniversary, including requests to its partners such as China and Turkey to issue statements, or tweets that criticise India.
In Pakistan’s new map, the part of Kashmir and Ladakh border with China was not marked and described as “Frontier Undecided”. Similarly, the Line of Control had been extended to the Karakoram Pass, showing Siachen as part of Pakistan. The LoC had been marked by a red dotted line.
Another change in the map showed that the international border lines “lies along the eastern bank” of Sir Creek, which was previously along the western bank.
The Pakistan cabinet also approved the decision to rename a major road in Islamabad as Srinagar Highway. The road was previously called Kashmir Highway.
The controversial changes were made a day before the first anniversary of India’s decision to revoke the special status of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, 2019.
Recently India’s other neighbour Nepal released a new map showing the Indian territories of Limpiyadhura, Kalapani and Lipulekh. Even as India rejected the move, the KP Sharma Oli-led government went ahead and passed the map through a constitutional amendment.