Retrieving Pak-occupied Kashmir on centre's agenda, says minister Jitendra Singh

New Delhi: Union Minister Jitendra Singh said that retrieving Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) and making it a part of India is very much on the centre's agenda. He was speaking with London-based Jammu and Kashmir-origin students and social groups.

He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking to "correct several anomalies of the past that were the legacy of successive governments since 1947". He added that the abrogation of Article 370 has created a sense of belonging among the people of Jammu and Kashmir and given them equal rights vis-a-vis their counterparts in the rest of the country.

Speaking about the 2019 move of scrapping the special status of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, and bifurcating it into Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, he said that PM Modi will be remembered for having brought "justice to refugees from Pakistan settled in Jammu and Kashmir and to the daughters of Jammu and Kashmir who were deprived of their constitutional rights of citizenship and owning property."

"India's stature has risen globally as a result of the corrective measures adopted by Prime Minister Modi. There is no ambiguity left as far as India's position about Jammu and Kashmir is concerned, which is, it is an integral part of the Indian Union," he added.

In an official statement, he further said: "If only the then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had allowed the then home minister Sardar 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."

He told the groups he interacted with that the time has come to "create our own narrative so that false narratives created by our adversaries do not gain the upper hand". "The world is ready to listen to India's viewpoint under Prime Minister Modi. The message that nobody can challenge or harm the integrity and sovereignty of India should go loud and clear across all sections, " he added.

Representatives of the Jammu and Kashmir Study Centre branch in London, people hailing from different regions of Jammu and Kashmir, people engaged in different areas of work in the region, members of Dogra organisations of Jammu and Kashmir, and members of Kashmiri Pandit activist groups were in attendance.