'PoK to be part of India soon, tricolour will be unfurled there': Indian state minister slam

Days after a video of Shahid Afridi went viral in which the former Pakistan cricket captain was seen making controversial remarks on Kashmir and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a BJP minister in the Uttar Pradesh government has hit back. Uttar Pradesh minister Anand Swaroop Shukla on Thursday said Shahid Afridi should note that the tricolour would soon unfurl in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). The state minister said the part of Kashmir, which is illegally occupied by Pakistan, would soon be part of India. “Pak-occupied Kashmir would very soon be a part of India, and the national tricolour would be unfurled there," Shukla said. Besides making controversial remarks on Kashmir, Afridi has also accused the Indian Prime Minister of committing religious atrocities. Afridi’s remarks drew widespread condemnation not just from Indian political leaders but also several Indian cricketers. The Uttar Pradesh minister today said those speaking ill of India and pointing guns at our country “are being eliminated by our Army”. "I want to tell people like Shahid Afridi, who are trying to weaken India, that this is Narendra Modi's government, which conducted the surgical strikes,” he said, in reference to the cross-border operations conducted by the Indian forces against Pakistan-based terrorists during the Modi regime. “The time is coming when the map of Pakistan would have to become a thing of the past to establish peace in the world," Shukla, the minister of state for parliamentary affairs in the Yogi Adityanath government, said. He further said that etiquette cannot be expected from a person like Afridi. Earlier this week, Jammu and Kashmir BJP president Ravinder Raina had also slammed the former Pakistani cricketer for making controversial remarks. Raina said it seems Afridi has not forgotten India batsmen's onslaught against him, while asking him to read his country’s history. Pakistan has faced crushing defeat whenever it attempted any misadventure against India, Raina told Afridi. "He (Afridi) should stop making insane statements against India. We know he is a disappointed and desperate cricketer of his time and used to get a beating whenever he used to come to bowl to the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag and Rahul Dravid. He has not forgotten it," the J&K BJP leader said. "Our Army hoisted Indian flag in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad in the 1965 war and created Bangladesh by dividing Pakistan (in 1971). They (Pakistan) sneaked clandestinely into the heights of Kargil (1999) but were beaten back by our brave Army," he added.