'Very much' on Modi government agenda to take back Pakistan-occupied Kashmir: India minister in UK

Jitendra Singh, India's minister of state for the prime minister's office, on Monday (1) remarked during a Jammu and Kashmir-origin social groups and students in London that taking back Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) is very much on the agenda of the Narendra Modi government.

Singh, who was born in Jammu and is currently on a six-day visit to the UK, said the PoK issue would have never arisen had the then Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru allowed his home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to handle the region the same way he was handling other princely states.

Indian minister Jitendra Singh addresses at the get-together of British Royal Society Fellows, university leaders, Academicians and Indian students undergoing courses under the aegis of Royal Society in London, the UK, on Saturday, April 29, 2023. (ANI Photo)

"He (Singh) said it is very much on the agenda of the government led by Prime Minister Modi and the BJP as a political party to retrieve the illegally occupied PoJK from the control of Pakistan and restore it back to India," according to an official statement.

The minister, who represents Jammu and Kashmir's Udhampur constituency in Lok Sabha or Lower House of the Indian parliament, blamed the previous governments of India for "several anomalies" that Modi had sought to correct since taking over as the prime minister for the first time in 2014.

Singh, who also holds other portfolios including science and technology, earth sciences and space and atomic energy, said if only the then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had allowed Patel to handle Jammu and Kashmir in the same manner he was handling other princely states of India, today the part of Jammu and Kashmir that is illegally occupied by Pakistan would have been a part of India and the issue of PoJK would have never have risen, the statement said.

The meeting lasted for nearly an hour and consisted of people engaged in different areas of work and hailing from different regions of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, including Udhampur. Representatives of the J&K Study Centre branch in London, who have their main office in New Delhi, were also present. Members of the Dogra organisations of Jammu and Kashmir and members of the Kashmiri Pandit activist groups also took part.

Singh appreciated the participants over the manner in which they had contributed in correcting negative narratives about India particularly in the context of Jammu and Kashmir by certain vested interests and had also stood up to challenge the anti-India forces in the UK, the official statement added.

Singh also said that the repeal of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution gave the people of Jammu and Kashmir a sense of belonging. He said Modi would be remembered for having provided justice to the daughters of Jammu and Kashmir who had been denied their constitutional rights to citizenship and ownership of property besides the Pakistani refugees who had relocated to Jammu and Kashmir.