Author: Indo-Asian News Service
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: June 23, 2004
URL: http://hindustantimes.com/news/181_842507,00080004.htm
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra
Modi has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about Pakistan government
publications showing Junagadh and Manavadar towns in the state as disputed
Pakistani territories.
In his letter, Modi has said the
matter was very serious and it should not be ignored by us.
The chief minister has recommended
that forceful resistance to such misleading presentation should be registered
with Pakistan government and said the matter should be taken up at the
secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan.
"Gujarat being a border state, it
is very sensitive to any misadventures of Pakistan and I have come across
some publications of government of Pakistan, wherein based on the intentions
of the then nawabs' (rulers) of these two territories Pakistan is still
showing them as disputed.
"Hence, the matter seems to be very
important and needs to be condemned and sorted out at the earliest," he
has written.
At the time of partition, the Muslim
rulers of Junagadh, 327 Km from Ahmedabad, and the nearby Manavadar wanted
their princely states to be merged with Pakistan. However, their plans
did not materialise and the territories were merged with union of India.
