Congress's Mani Shankar Aiyar says 'Respect Pak or they'll drop atom bomb'

Congress veteran Mani Shankar Aiyar courted controversy after saying that India should engage in dialogue with Pakistan and not flex its military muscles as it may irk Islamabad into deploying nuclear weapons against New Delhi.

Aiyar, a former diplomat and vocal advocate of normalising India-Pakistan relations, stated that the government can talk tough to Islamabad if it wants to, but if it doesn’t respect the neighbouring country, it may have to pay a heavy price.

"They have atom bombs. We have them too, but if a ‘madman’ decides to drop a bomb on Lahore, it won’t take 8 seconds for the radiation to reach Amritsar," he warned.

"If we respect them, they will remain peaceful. But if we snub them, what happens if a ‘madman’ comes up and decides to launch bombs [at India]?" Aiyar asked.

In a veiled dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Aiyar said, "In order to become the vishwaguru, no matter how serious our issues with Pakistan are, we have to show that we are working hard to resolve them. But in the last 10 years, there has been no hard work [to this end]."

The Congress leader's remarks came against the backdrop of heightened tensions between India and Pakistan after PM Narendra Modi's famous ghar me ghus kar warning where he said Indian forces would enter Pakistan to kill anyone who escapes over the border.

In the wake of the Prime Minister's remark, other senior BJP leaders have also dialled up the anti-Pakistan rhetoric. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh asserted that Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir (PoK) "was, is, and will remain ours", but India won't have to capture it with force because its people, on their own, would want to be part of India.

National Conference (NC) chief and former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah reminded Rajnath Singh of Pakistan's nuclear capabilities. "Remember, they (Pakistan) are also not wearing bangles. It has atom bombs, and unfortunately, that atom bomb will fall on us”, he warned.