Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday accused Pakistan of waging a proxy war against India and declared that it is now time for New Delhi to respond to Islamabad in the same language.

“Pakistan has begun a proxy war against India by attacking Mumbai. Pakistan is resorting to such means because it is not capable of waging a direct war against India. It is now time for India to answer back,” said Modi. “Pakistan knows that it will lose if it attacks India,” he added.

He said Gujarat is one of the industrial hubs of the country, and “enemy nations are eying the state.”

Earlier in the morning, Modi met the officers and men of the Gujarat frontier of the Border Security Force (BSF), deployed along the Indo-Pak International Border along Kutch. The visit was to celebrate the first day of the year with the men of the paramilitary force.

Modi visited the BSF’s Vighakot border outpost and the Koteshwar creek area and also took stock of the fencing and pillar post construction work there. “I gathered information about the border areas during this visit. Our (BSF) personnel are fully capable of answering the enemy nation in the language they understand,” he said.

Gujarat Director General of Police P C Pande, BSF Inspector General (Gujarat Frontier) G S Shekhawat, and Principal Secretary K Kailashnathan, along with officers from the district police and administration accompanied Modi during the visit.

Modi, who will be in New Delhi for the Chief Ministers’ conference scheduled for next week, said, he will appraise Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about the situation on the Gujarat border.