*ISLAMABAD – Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Sunday that India had calledPakistan’s nuclear bluff in recent cross-border air strikes that almosttriggered a new war between the nuclear-armed rivals.*
Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have madenational security the focus of their campaign for a national election nowbeing held.
The prime minister told an election rally that an air strike insidePakistan in February had shown that warnings hostilities could escalateinto nuclear conflict were false.
“Pakistan has threatened us with nuclear, nuclear, nuclear,” Modi told anelection rally in Jammu and Kashmir near the border with Pakistan.
“Did we deflate their nuclear threat or not?” he asked the crowd thatchanted “Modi, Modi, Modi” in response.
India says its fighter jets bombed a suspected militant installation inPakistan on February 26 to avenge the killing of 40 paramilitaries by asuicide bomber in Indian Kashmir 12 days earlier.
Pakistan responded by sending its warplanes toward Indian airspace, leadingto a dogfight and the downing of an Indian jet.
Military experts have long warned that a conventional armed conflictbetween the two countries could result in nuclear war and that this washolding them back from a serious showdown.
Pakistan has never made a public nuclear threat. But its Prime MinisterImran Khan did call on both sides to pull back from the brink in Februarybecause of the “weapons we have”.
Modi renewed his warning to Pakistan that “his new India” is capable of“eliminating terrorists in their homes”.
Read Top Stories
India has long accused Pakistan of supporting militants in Kashmir, acharge its neighbour denies.
The BJP has sought to use security to lead its election campaign amid asurge of nationalist sentiment since the air strikes.
Opposition groups who have questioned the success of the raids have beenslammed as “anti-national” by the party.
Modi also vowed that India would never give up its claim to Kashmir, whichis divided between the two countries, and has been the cause of two warsbetween the neighbours since their independence in 1947.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in an insurgency inIndian-administered Kashmir since 1989.
Modi attacked opposition parties who he said were working to “separate”Kashmir, the country’s only Muslim majority state, from India.
The government currently faces widespread opposition in Kashmir to a planto scrap a constitutional article that gives the Himalayan region a specialautonomous status within India.
Opposition parties accuse Modi of exploiting turbulence in Kashmir to wooHindu voters in the election. – APP/AFP
