New Delhi, Aug. 14: India on Thursday responded to Pakistan’s repeated anti-India rhetoric, accusing Islamabad’s leadership of “reckless, war-mongering and hateful comments” to distract from their failures and warning that “any misadventure will have painful consequences, as was demonstrated recently,” in a likely reference to Operation Sindoor. India had launched the military operation targeting terror sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) in retaliation for the Pahalgam attack where terrorists killed 26 civilians.

Addressing a press conference Thursday, Indian MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said: “We have seen reports regarding a continuing pattern of reckless, war-mongering and hateful comments from Pakistani leadership against India. It is a well-known modus operandi of the Pakistani leadership to whip up anti-India rhetoric time and again to hide their own failures. Pakistan would be well-advised to temper its rhetoric, as any misadventure will have painful consequences, as was demonstrated recently.”

According to a PTI report, Pakistan Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir reportedly made the nuclear threat during an address to the Pakistani diaspora in Florida’s Tampa on Saturday. “We are a nuclear nation. If we think we are going down, we’ll take half the world down with us,” media reports quoted him as saying. There is no text of the speech or a video to confirm these comments.

Responding to another question regarding the award by the Court of Arbitration under the Indus Water Treaty, Jaiswal said that the International Court of Arbitration lacks any “legal authority” to make pronouncements on the Indus Waters Treaty between India and Pakistan as New Delhi has never recognised the legitimacy of the court.

“India has never accepted the legality, legitimacy, or competence of the so-called Court of Arbitration. Its pronouncements are, therefore, without jurisdiction, devoid of legal standing, and have no bearing on India’s rights to utilise the waters,” he said.

As per a report by Reuters, a ruling from the Court of Arbitration last week backed Pakistan by saying that India must adhere to the Indus Waters Treaty in the design of new hydro-electric power stations on rivers that flow west into Pakistan.

“India also categorically rejects Pakistan’s selective and misleading references to the so-called ‘award.’ As reiterated in our press release dated 27 June 2025, the Indus Waters Treaty remains in abeyance by a sovereign decision of the Government of India, taken in response to Pakistan’s continued sponsorship of cross-border terrorism, including the barbaric Pahalgam attack,” Jaiswal said.-Agencies