New Delhi [India], October 11 (ANI): Former Minister of State (MoS) for External Affairs MJ Akbar launched a sharp attack on Pakistan amid the ongoing protests in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, describing it as a 'corrupt military dictatorship' sustained by 'supremacism and fascism.'

In a conversation with ANI, Akbar said that people of Kashmir, on both sides of the border, had been misled into believing that religion could serve as the foundation of nationalism and statehood, but were now realising the truth.

'The people of Kashmir who were fooled, or those people in their part of occupied Kashmir, who were fooled into believing this, now know the truth. The truth is that Pakistan is nothing but an acquisitive, corrupt military dictatorship which has seized the country's economy, which has taken over 60 per cent of the country and is running a fragile and deeply corrupt state and holding it up with ideas of supremacism and fascism,' Akbar said.

He further stated that 'Islam lives in a mosque, not a country,' adding that the credibility of the Pakistan state, 'never very high', is now starting to collapse.

'When the credibility of the Pakistan state, which was never very high, begins to crumple...the basis of Pakistan's creation was an illogical and absurd idea that religion can be the basis of nationalism, that Islam can be the basis of nationalism. If Islam were a sufficient basis of nationalism, please explain to me why there are 22 Arab countries. Not only do they have Islam in common, but they also have language in common. Political state formation is different from religion. Islam lives in a mosque. Islam doesn't live in a country. That this idea was fragile is being exposed today,' Akbar said.

Akbar also warned that Pakistan's reported attack on Afghanistan could mark the beginning of its internal degradation.

'Let me touch upon the most important consequence of this attack (Pakistan's attack on Afghanistan). This is the starting point of the destruction of Pakistan, the split of Pakistan into various countries. Already, the tensions have been very obvious. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region has been struggling for independence. Right from Abdul Ghaffar Khan's time, it has taken a fresh momentum. The war for independence in Balochistan has been well recorded; it has been continuing,' he said.

Linking Pakistan's instability to its handling of dissent and its dealings with external powers, Akbar said, 'That is one of the reasons the rare earths that China has now put on to play, and which Pakistan is trying to fool America with. We must ask ourselves a question: why did China never mine those rare earths? Because the situation is too fraught with danger.' (ANI)