Warning by Mrs Gandhi

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32803, 31 December 1971, Page 13

Warning by Mrs Gandhi

<N Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) NEW DELHI, December 29. The Indian Prime Minister (Mrs Gandhi) touring Kashmir today offered the hand of friendship to Pakistan but said that while India wanted peace, it was prepared to fight with all its might if attacked.

Speaking first to a crowd of 50,000 in biting cold weather in the Kashmiri capital, Srinagar, she said India had emerged stronger from the war with Pakistan. “Although we have paid a heavy price in the dead and wounded, the fight has not been in vain —it has strengthened the country,” she said. She warned Pakistan and countries friendly to Islamabad against any attempt to weaken India. “We do not want a weak neighbour, but we will not tolerate that Pakistan or her allies try to weaken us in any way,” Mrs Gandhi said. She offered her hand in friendship to Pakistan and said she hoped that Pakistan’s leadership now realised that their country’s good lay in friendship with India. India had no quarrel with the people of Pakistan, or their country. But, unfortunately, from its very inception, Pakistani leaders had kept their sights glued on a

fight with India, Mrs Gandhi said. Certain interested Powers wanted India and Pakistan to remain apart, she said. While India saw through this game, Pakistan had fallen into the trap and had allowed these countries to spread the poison of hate between two brotherly neighbours. In a second speech at the i town of Jarmu, close to the scene of some of the heaviest fighting in the west, Mrs Gandhi told a crowd of 100,000 that while India wanted peace she was prepared to fight with all her might if attacked. She gave a warning that the danger of war had not yet passed. “It looks as if we have only got some breathing time,” she said. More details became available in New Delhi today of the battle which raged for 12 hours in the Ganganagar sector of the western front in Rajasthan state last night and amounted to the most serious breach yet of the cease-fire. According to Indian sources, Pakistani troops under cover of heavy shelling and backed by armour launched an attack on Indian defences in the area. They were repulsed with losses.