PATNA: A day after Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan quoted Congress while launching an attack on India over the Kashmir issue, Union Minister Giriraj Singh said that it seems now that the grand old party has become a 'political tool' for Islamabad.
"It looks like Congress has become political tool for Pakistan. Can't understand whether Imran Khan is speaking Congress' language or Congress is speaking Imran Khan's language... Today, the youth of Kashmir is happy. Those reaping the benefits of separatism in Kashmir are having problems today," Singh told media here when asked about Imran Khan's statement.
At a press conference in New York on the sidelines of the 74th UN General Assembly session on Tuesday, Imran Khan said, "For a start, they have to lift the curfew, that's the beginning. Even the Congress party in India has commented that poor people have been shut inside for 50 days. No one knows what's happening with the political prisoners... (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi has boxed himself in a blind alley."
This is not the first time when Congress was left red-faced with Pakistan's actions over the Kashmir matter.
Earlier this month, the opening pages of a leaked Pakistan's dossier on Jammu and Kashmir contained the statements made by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and National Conference (NC) leader Omar Abdullah in the wake of the abrogation of Article 370.
"It has been 20 days since the people of Jammu and Kashmir had their freedom and civil liberties curtailed. Leaders of the Opposition and Press got a taste of draconian administration and brute force unleashed on people of Jammu and Kashmir when we tried to visit Srinagar," Gandhi had been quoted as saying in the pages.
Adding insult to injury, Pakistan's Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari last month wrote a letter to 18 UN Special Procedures mandate on the Kashmir issue. In her letter, Mazari had claimed that Gandhi noted that people are dying in Jammu and Kashmir.
Since August 5, tensions between India and Pakistan soared after New Delhi abrogated provisions of Article 370 that granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcated the region into two separate Union Territories (UTs).