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Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told Indian expats in Morocco’s Rabat that the illegally held PoK region will return to India without taking any aggressive steps.
Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh suggested a peaceful uprising in PoK, with locals asserting their ties to India. (IMAGE: PTI)
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told the Indian community in Morocco that slogans are being raised in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) for merging back with India and expressed confidence that the area illegally held by Pakistan will merge with India without taking any aggressive steps.
“PoK will be ours on its own. Demands have started being made in PoK, you must have heard sloganeering,” Singh said during his interaction with the Indian community in Morocco, according to ANI, who first reported the story.
“I was addressing the Indian Army at a program in Kashmir Valley five years ago, I had then said that we will not need to attack and capture PoK, it is anyway ours; PoK itself will say, ‘Main bhi Bharat Hoon’. That day will come,” the Defence Minister said.
Earlier, in August, Rawalakot, a major town in the PoK, saw massive demonstrations as thousands of civilians took to the streets demanding freedom from Pakistan.
A top intelligence official speaking to CNN-News18 at the time of the incident had said that these protests stemmed from years of systemic neglect, rampant unemployment and the chronic absence of basic amenities in the region.
“Islamabad has deliberately kept PoK economically backward to maintain control,” a source told CNN-News18 at the time of the protest. “Infrastructure that does exist is built for the Pakistan Army’s benefit and not for the civilians who live here.”
Across villages in PoK, anger has begun to surface against terrorists using the region’s youth to destabilize India using terror as a tool. Pakistan-based and Pakistan Army-funded terror groups have used the region’s young men and women to terrorize India but earlier this year family members of a slain terrorist who was from the region barred Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and its affiliated JKUM group from attending the funeral.
Singh is on a two-day visit to Morocco, where he will inaugurate Tata Advanced Systems’ new manufacturing facility for the Wheeled Armoured Platform (WhAP) 8×8 at Berrechid. The plant is the first-ever Indian defence manufacturing unit in Africa.
This marks the first visit by an Indian Defence Minister to Morocco.
He described the facility as a significant milestone, highlighting the expanding global footprint of India’s defence industry.
Shankhyaneel Sarkar is a senior subeditor at News18. He covers international affairs, where he focuses on breaking news to in-depth analyses. He has over five years of experience during which he has covered sev…Read More
Shankhyaneel Sarkar is a senior subeditor at News18. He covers international affairs, where he focuses on breaking news to in-depth analyses. He has over five years of experience during which he has covered sev… Read More
September 22, 2025, 11:02 is
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