india

Updated: Aug 24, 2020 09:00 IST

The Shiv Sena has a suggestion for the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre on how to tackle the tukde-tukde gang, which it says wants to divide the country.

The Sena, in an editorial in its mouthpiece Saamana on Monday, said the government should give a tight slap those who are talking about the country’s division by including Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) in India.

“Tukde-tukde gang” is a Hindi term used by detractors of the students of Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) to level accusations against them of being linked to efforts to divide the country.

“The government is angry with JNU’s ‘tukde-tukde gang’ but instead of making a counter declaration against them, it should give them a tight slap and make them remember the map of an undivided India. We call that nationalism,” it said.

The comments by the Sena comes at a time when the Congress, its ally in the Mahavikas Aghadi in Maharashtra, is extending support to JNU students protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and after the January 5 violence on the campus.

The editorial also referred to new Indian Army chief General Manoj Naravane, who recently said PoK is a part of India and that the army will take over the region if the central government gave an order.

“General Naravane is seeking orders in taking steps for it... The army chief has sought orders to implement the decision taken by Parliament. The central government should not step back now, as this is the best way to teach this tukde tukde gang a lesson,” it said.

It also talked about the decision taken in February 1994 by Parliament that PoK along with entire Jammu and Kashmir are a part of India and, therefore, Pakistan should give up the illegal control of Kashmir.

Its ally Congress, on the other hand, had asked Gen Naravane to “talk less, work more” after his PoK comments.

“@New Army Chief, Parliament already had adopted unanimous resolution on #POK in 1994, Govt is at liberty to take action and may give direction. If you are so inclined to take action on POK, I would suggest you to confabulate with CDS, and @PMOIndia. Talk Less, Work More (sic),” Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Adhir Chowdhury had tweeted.

The Shiv Sena, however, seemed to back the army chief.

“The general didn’t say anything wrong that Pakistan has the largest number of terrorist training camps in an unauthorised Kashmir and these terrorists have a free run with the support of the Pakistani army and the ISI,” it said.

It also brought up the army’s surgical strike on terrorist launchpads across the Line of Control (LoC) in PoK in 2016 using ground forces, which it had said had inflicted “significant casualties” on terrorists.

“But we can see even after the surgical strike, their hardships have not reduced and even today the blood of our soldiers is being shed, which is why PoK should be freed from the clutches of Pakistan,” it said.

The Sena also took another swipe at its former ally, the BJP. It said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and all BJP leaders, while campaigning in every election after the surgical strike, have said that their next target is PoK and they will act on it.

“[Union home minister] Amit Shah created a revolution by freeing Kashmir from Article 370. Now, General Manoj Naravane will immediately act after Modi-Shah’s orders through which the reality of an undivided India will be a fitting tribute to [VD] Savarkar,” the editorial said.