{"id":13154,"date":"2018-12-01T09:27:21","date_gmt":"2018-12-01T03:57:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/?p=13154"},"modified":"2018-12-01T09:27:21","modified_gmt":"2018-12-01T03:57:21","slug":"turn-secular-if-you-have-to-stay-together-with-india-army-chief-to-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=13154","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Turn secular\u2019 if you have to stay together with India: Army chief to Pakistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Srinagar:<\/i><\/strong> Venturing into uncharted waters, the army chief, general Bipin Rawat, Friday said Pakistan should \u201cturn into a secular state from an Islamic nation if the neighbouring country has to stay together with India\u201d.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cIf they (Pakistan) have to stay together with India, then they have to develop as a secular state,\u201d Rawat told reporters on the sidelines of the Passing Out Parade of the 135th course at the National Defence Academy here.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cSee this staying together, staying separate, ispe Pakistan ko apni andruni halat dekhni hogi. Pakistan ne apne state ko Islamic state bana diya hai. Hum log secular state hai (Pakistan has to look at its internal situation. They are an Islamic state, we (India) are a secular state),\u201d he said.<\/i><\/p>\n

Gen Rawat said, \u201cHow can we stay together if you say I am an Islamic state and there is no role for anybody else,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cIf they are willing to become secular like us, then they seem to have an opportunity. Pehle dekhe karte hai ki nahi karte (Let us see if they do so or not).\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

The Army chief also asked Pakistan to \u201ccurtail militant activities\u201d.<\/i><\/p>\n

Asked about Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan\u2019s statement that Islamabad would move two steps forward if New Delhi took one step, Gen Rawat said the neighbouring nation \u201cshould first take steps to curtail militant activities on its soil\u201d.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to tell Pakistan to initiate that first step (curtailing militancy). In the past, India has taken several steps. When we say militancy is being harboured in your country, show some action by curtailing militant activities which are used against India,\u201d Rawat said.<\/i><\/p>\n

On Khan\u2019s statement as to why India and Pakistan could not be friends when Germany and France could be good neighbours, he said the neighbouring nation \u201cfirst needs to see its internal condition\u201d.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Srinagar: Venturing into uncharted waters, the army chief, general Bipin Rawat, Friday said Pakistan should \u201cturn into a secular state from an Islamic nation if the neighbouring country has to stay together with India\u201d. \u201cIf they (Pakistan) have to stay together with India, then they have to develop as a secular state,\u201d Rawat told reporters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13153,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-union-territory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}