India and Afghanistan have joined hands to create unrest in Pakistan: Pak Defence Minister

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Monday alleged in the Parliament that India and Afghanistan have joined hands to create unrest in Pakistan.

He said that there had been a constant rise in India's alleged unprovoked firing and violation of the ceasefire agreement along the Line of Control, Dawn online reported.

The minister, in a written reply to the Parliament, claimed that in the past four years, India has violated the ceasefire agreement 1,170 times along the LoC and 257 times across the Working Boundary.

Pakistan is trying to implement better and more complete border management with Afghanistan, he said while responding to opposition lawmakers in the Parliament's lower house, National Assembly, the report said. "Until there is better border management with Afghanistan, the scourge of terrorism will continue to exist," Asif said.

"We have the right to shut the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan and protect our people," he said.

The border has 25 openings from where people travel between the two countries, but Pakistan cannot let terrorists to cross into the country. "We gave refuge to thousands of Afghans, but we will not keep housing terrorists. The killers of our sons are sitting on Afghan soil, the government needs to take action against them," Asif said.

Discussing the matter of discrimination against Pakhtuns in the recent operations, the minister said, "There is no discrimination against any one ethnicity. The operation is against terrorists and terrorists do not have any religion, caste or ethnicity".