Pakistan tried to backstab India: PM Modi on Kargil Vijay Diwas

New Delhi: Pakistan tried to "backstab" India despite her attempts to keep friendly relations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said today in his tribute to the armed forces on the 21st anniversary of Kargil war.  In his monthly radio address Mann ki Baat, PM Modi said "Pakistan undertook this misadventure with sinister plans to capture India's land and to divert its ongoing internal conflicts".

"Pakistan had the audacity of trying to occupy Indian soil and deviate attention from its own internal unrest," he said.

"At the time, India was trying for improve relations with Pakistan. But as it is said, evil's nature is to fight everyone without reason. People of this nature can only think of doing evil even to those who try to do them good. That's why Pakistan backstabbed India despite India's attempts at cordial relations," he said..

"You can imagine, the enemy was perched high on the mountains while our forces were fighting them from below. But the high morale and true of our forces won against mountains," he added.

"Thanks to the courage of our armed forces, India showed great strength in Kargil," PM Modi said, recalling his own visit to the area.

Kargil Diwas  is celebrated every year, marking the day the Indian Army recaptured all the Indian posts in Ladakh's Kargil that had been occupied by Pakistan's army 21 years ago. On July 26, 1999, the Army had announced the successful culmination of "Operation Vijay". The nearly three-month battle in the icy heights of Ladakh had claimed the lives of more than 500 Indian soldiers.

Earlier today, defence minister Rajnath Singh, his junior minister Shripad Naik, Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, Army Chief General M M Naravane, Air Chief Marshal R K S Bhadauria and Navy Chief Admiral Karambir Singh also paid tributes at the Amar Jawan Jyoti at the National War Memorial.

In the decades since Kargil, India-Pakistan relations have been strained following a series of terror strikes. India has insisted that talks and terror cannot go hand-in-hand and Pakistan needs to dismantle all the terror camps operating from its soil.