Asserting New Delhi's claim over the disputed part of the region, a top Indian Air Force (IAF) officer on Wednesday expressed hope that someday Pakistan-controlled Kashmir will be merged with India.
At the same time, Air Marshal Amit Dev, who at present is the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Western Air Command, said that there is no plan "at the moment to capture Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK)."
"All the activities carried out by the Indian Air Force and the Army (on 27 October 1947) resulted in ensuring the freedom of this part of Kashmir. I am sure that some day, the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir will also join this part of Kashmir, and we will have the whole of Kashmir in years to come," Air Marshal Dev said on Wednesday.
Dev said that people on both sides of Kashmir have common roots. "We do not have a plan to capture [PoK] at the moment, but, God willing, it will always be there because people in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir are not being treated very fairly by the Pakistanis," he said.
"After the instrument of accession was signed with King Hari Singh in 1947, we moved our troops in quickly and Srinagar airfield was saved, and after that, we launched a further offensive and pushed the Pakistani military, which came as Kabalis (tribals), further back."
Dev emphasised that if the UN had not intervened in October 1947, perhaps, "the entire Kashmir would have been ours". Both India and Pakistan claim the disputed region of some 18 million people with India administering the area south of the Line of Control and Pakistan the northwestern section. China controls the eastern part of Kashmir, which it received from Pakistan under a boundary agreement in 1963.
The Indian foreign ministry on Wednesday said that the passage of a new land border law by China does not confer any "legitimacy to the so-called China/Pakistan Boundary Agreement of 1963, which the Government of India has consistently maintained is an illegal and invalid agreement."
China passed a new "Land Boundary Law" on 23 October, which states that China abides by treaties concluded with or jointly acceded to by foreign countries on land boundary affairs.