India losing battle in Kashmir: Imran

NEW DELHI - Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan has said that by using military in Kashmir, India is ‘losing the battle of heart and minds’.“India is using troops in Kashmir. They are losing the battle of heart and minds. It’s like treating cancer with dispirin,” Imran said in an interview with India daily Mail Today.The cricketer-turned-politician said the Kashmir issue cannot be resolved militarily. “I will work on a roadmap by making people from India, Pakistan and Kashmiris look for a solution by sitting on a table.” Imran is currently present in India to attend the World Economic Forum in Gurgaon.Of terrorism in Pakistan, the PTI chief said that terror leaders can be ‘transformed’. He said he will ‘declare jihad to save Pakistan’ and ‘will disarm all militant groups operating in the country’.He said if he becomes the prime minister of Pakistan, he will bring the culprits behind Mumbai attacks to justice. “India must understand the legal process takes time, but I will bring the Mumbai perpetrators to justice. We have to follow the rule of law,” he said.Imran said he was confident of winning the upcoming elections: “I have created the only democratic party in Pakistan. We are now preparing for a democratic tsunami.”Speaking about Pakistan’s relationship with India, he said he was ‘in favour of a new relationship’. “All these years we have had a relationship which was detrimental to the entire subcontinent. We moved one step forward, two steps backward. Mumbai came, (and) we were back to square one.”When asked about his ties with the ISI and the Pakistan army, he went on the offensive. "I will quit politics if anyone can prove I have taken one rupee from the ISI," he thundered. He repeated his opposition to US drone attacks in Pakistan. If elected prime minister he said he would "disengage with the US war to end the jihad narrative which has led to the birth of the suicide bomber". He also spoke out against the killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad because Osama-style executions created martyrs. Meanwhile, Imran Khan on Wednesday said time was up for trying to solve Indo-Pak issues through ‘militancy and militarily’ but asserted that unless Kashmir issue was resolved, there was ‘always a possibility’ of Mumbai-like attacks.Khan also said if his party comes to power, he will not allow terrorism against India to originate from his country's soil. Addressing a World Economic Forum meeting in Indian city of Gurgaon, he said while improvement in bilateral trade was welcome, the issue of Jammu and Kashmir must also progress on a parallel line.Terming a solution to the Kashmir issue as ‘vital’, he said "trade, connections, along with cricket matches will help. At the same time, we should develop some sort of a roadmap to resolve Kashmir issue, which is vital."Because unless we operate on both plains, there is always a possibility, as it happened, relationships were improving, confidence building measures, cricket matches, people-to-people contacts, and then came Mumbai."Stressing the need for a ‘new relationship’, he said "no more trying to resolve our problems through militancy and military but through politics. It should be two-pronged. One to normalise, open up relationships with trade on one side and then start a dialogue on Kashmir."He also noted that his party has three former Pakistani foreign ministers who have told him that they had ‘come pretty close to resolving’ the Kashmir issue.He said lack of trust was a basic problem in Indo-Pak relations which got worse after Mumbai attacks and added that efforts should be made to increase the trust factor.

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