Pakistan says India 'threat to regional peace'

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan

Pakistan on Wednesday accused arch-rival India of becoming a "threat" to regional peace by getting engaged in a series of disputes with its neighbors.

"The Hindutava Supremacist Modi government with its arrogant, expansionist policies akin to Nazi's Lebensraum (Living Space) is becoming a threat to India's neighbors. Bangladesh through Citizenship Act, border dispute with Nepal and China, and Pakistan threatened with false flag operation," Prime Minister Imran Khan said in a series of tweets.

His rebuke followed a fresh flare up in New Delhi's longstanding land disputes with Beijing, and Kathmandu, and a controversial Citizenship Act offering citizenship rights to Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Parsi and Jain communities migrating from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. The law, however, excluded Muslims from these countries.

"All this after illegal annexation of IOJK [Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir] , a war crime under 4th Geneva Convention, and laying claim to AJK [Azad Jammu and Kashmir]. I have always maintained the fascist Modi government is not only a threat to India's minorities by relegating them to the second class citizens's status, but also [a] threat to regional peace," Khan added.

Meanwhile, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Pakistan’s foreign minister, said that the latest Sino-India border conflict was triggered by the latter's "illegal constructions" in Ladakh, a disputed territory, the state-run Radio Pakistan reported.

He said that while China wished to resolve its issues through dialogue, it "cannot remain oblivious to India's illegal constructions.”

The already frosty relations between Pakistan and India, the nuclear-armed neighbors, plummeted further after New Delhi revoked the longstanding special status of disputed Jammu and Kashmir last August.

Kashmir is held by India and Pakistan in parts but claimed by both in full. A small sliver of Kashmir is also controlled by China.

Since they were partitioned in 1947, the two countries have fought three wars -- in 1948, 1965 and 1971 -- two of them over Kashmir.

Some Kashmiri groups in Jammu and Kashmir have been fighting against Indian rule for independence, or unification with neighboring Pakistan.

According to several human rights organizations, thousands of people have been killed and tortured in the conflict since 1989.