Sheep: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday said Pakistan is afraid of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and hence there is peace on the border in Jammu and Kashmir. Shah said this while addressing an election rally in support of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Murtaza Khan in the border area of Poonch district in the Union Territory.
He praised the BJP-led central government for “eradicating terrorism by putting laptops in the hands of youth instead of guns and stones” and said his government would not allow the sound of guns to reverberate in the mountains of Jammu region.
Shah said, “We will build more bunkers on the border for the safety of the people. I want to remind you of the cross-border firing in the 1990s… Is there still cross-border firing today?” He said, “This is because the earlier rulers here were afraid of Pakistan, but now Pakistan is afraid of Modi. They will not dare to open fire, but if they do, they will be given a befitting reply.”
The BJP leader is on a three-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir and is scheduled to address four more election rallies at Surankot in Poonch, Thanamandi and Rajouri in Rajouri district and Akhnoor in Jammu district.
Assembly elections are being held in Jammu and Kashmir for the first time after the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019 and the division of the then state into two union territories – Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
The first phase of voting took place on September 18. The second phase of voting will be held on September 25. After this, the third and final phase of voting will be held on October 1. The election results will be declared on October 8.