'India cannot copy Pakistan': CPI (M) on Modi's Balochistan remarks

Expressing his views on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's statement over Balochistan, Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Mohammed Salim has said that India cannot be accused of the same thing that Pakistan is being accused of.

In an apparent attack at the Centre, he said we should sympathies with the people of Balochistan but not take the same path which Pakistan is taking on Kashmir.

"We can sympathies with them (Baloch people) but the question is we cannot be blamed for the same reason what Pakistan is being accused of," he said adding "When Pakistani incites trouble in Jammu and Kashmir or try to interfere in our domestic matter or try to provoke the Kashmiri population then we take it up against Pakistan so, how come we do the same thing. We can't copy Pakistan."

"In diplomacy you have your own way, your own style. Your own policy decides how do you take it up," he said.

He however added, "As Indians we should be happy because Prime Minister Modi made a clear call from the ramp at the Red Fort. But, I think there is in Balochistan no doubt the violation of human rights, the people are oppressed there and the military is playing havoc over the decades as well as in the PoK or Gilgit and Baltistan also people are not happy. And even though Pakistan named it Azad Kashmir there is no Azadi . So people demanding there, it's their own right."

Prime Minister Modi, at an all-party meeting on August 12, said that Pakistan would have to answer for "atrocities" in Balochistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

Three days later, Prime MinisterModi during his Independence Day speech said that people from Balochistan and PoK had thanked him for raising the issue.