No one in 342-strong House knows national anthem, Achakzai in NA

PPP, PTI register strong protest; minister says India can’t dare cross into Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Kicking off a new controversy, Mehmood Khan Achakzai on Friday said in the National Assembly (NA) that nobody in this 342-strong house know the national anthem and they talked about being Pakistanis.

The PPP and the PTI registered a strong protest on Achakzai’s statement. Achakzai was talking on the issue of Fata when he said that nobody knows the national anthem.He said Fata should not be messed up otherwise it would become an international problem.

He said the truth is that the allegation that Fata is the cause of destablisation of the country was wrong. He said Pashtuns are not terrorists.Federal Minister of State and Frontier Regions Lt Gen (retd) Abdul Qadir Baloch said that India could never dare cross the LoC and conduct raids in Pakistan, advising the Indian leadership to manifest sanity while issuing statements creating war hysteria.

“Pakistani forces are fully capable and alert to thwart any act of aggression or violation along the LoC or any other border,” he said while speaking in the National Assembly in response to a point of order.

He said India had tried to create the impression of conducting surgical strikes inside Pakistan only for face-saving. “It was just a ‘fire raid’ that occasionally happens along the LoC,” the minister said.

He explained that Pakistan had well-trained armed forces that had successfully eliminated terrorism from the country and were fully capable of defending the country.He said India’s warmongering attitude was just for provoking Pakistan but it will not be successful because Pakistan always desired peace in the region.

“If India imposed a war on us, then every Pakistani will stand united and firm to defeat its nefarious designs,” the minister said.He said surgical strike was an action where enemy forces cross border into any country, destroy posts and kill the personnel but in this case it was just firing across the LoC and not surgical strikes.

He said India had also suffered casualties and it was common due to terrain that in some areas Pakistan can target their posts and in some areas they can target Pakistanis’ posts.