India on Saturday re-asserted its claim on the entire region Jammu and Kashmir including parts ‘occupied’ by Pakistan and said that the Indian army is ready to take action when the right time comes.

Former Army Chief and current Union Minister, VK Singh, said that entire Kashmir belonged to India, including parts currently under the administration of Pakistan. This statement comes at the heels of increased tensions between the two neighbours over the Kashmir.

Singh, speaking at E-Agenda Aaj-Tak, was confident about India’s position in the global world and said that the international community would support India and not Pakistan on the Kashmir issue.

Singh also spoke about the image of PM Modi and the global influence he garners would benefit India. He also said that outsiders’ judgement on incidents in Kashmir are wrong since only the people on the ground can give a true account of the incidents, clearly referring to Handwara encounter in which Hizbul Mujahideen commander, Riyaz Naiku, was eliminated.

While no concrete plans of India’s future actions were given by the former military leader, he reassured that when the time comes, India will know what to do.

‘I will not tell you that we are going to do this, or we will do that or what we have to do. It will happen when the time comes. A plan is ready. The day we see an opportunity, action will be taken,’’ he concluded.

Apart from all the militant activities and counter-terrorism operations extensively, both India and Pakistan have also indulged in a proxy war using both military might as well as soft power to assert their dominance over the region.

On April 30, a seven-judge bench of the Supreme Court in Islamabad, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Gulzar Ahmed, had allowed Islamabad to organise general elections in Gilgit Baltistan and set up a caretaker government until the elections.

India claims the Gilgit-Baltistan region as an integral part of India and strongly condemned the decision of the apex court of Pakistan. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) issued a demarche to protest what it called Pakistan’s attempt to make “material changes” to the disputed area, by bringing federal authority to Gilgit-Baltistan which has functioned as a “provincial autonomous region” since 2009.

“The Government of Pakistan or its judiciary has no locus standi on territories illegally and forcibly occupied by it. India completely rejects such actions and continued attempts to bring material changes in Pakistan occupied areas of the Indian territory of Jammu & Kashmir. Instead, Pakistan should immediately vacate all areas under its illegal occupation,” an MEA spokesperson said in a statement.

V.K. Singh also spoke on scheduled elections in Gilgit Baltistan and said that the Pakistan government is not able to manage the rest of the country and it is the army that decides what happens.

India retaliated with a subtle manoeuvre when the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) included regions of Gilgit-Baltistan and Muzaffarabad, territories currently under Pakistan controlled Kashmir in its daily weather bulletin. The IMD has now added this supplement in the Jammu and Kashmir meteorological subdivisions.

The Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson – Aisha Farooqi in a tweet stated – Pakistan rejects Indian move for “inclusion” of Azad Jammu and Kashmir & Gilgit-Baltistan in Indian TV weather bulletin. This is another mischievous Indian action in support of a spurious claim and further evidence of India’s irresponsible behaviour.

Kashmir has become a hotbed for violence as both India and Pakistan hold each other responsible for the instability and brutality. Militancy has also seen an increase, with 36 militants neutralised by India and 20 armed personnel casualties since April 1. Regardless of the global Coronavirus pandemic, New Delhi and Islamabad are not willing to relent on the Kashmir dispute.