A senior Air Force officer on Wednesday said that there were no plans currently to capture Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, but expressed hope that India will someday “have the whole of Kashmir”, PTI reported.

Air Officer Commanding in Chief of Western Air Command Air Marshal Amit Dev made the remarks during a media briefing at an event in Srinagar to mark the 75th anniversary of the Indian troops’ landing at Budgam.

On this day in 1947, the Indian Air Force landed in Budgam in Jammu and Kashmir to thwart Pakistani militants from entering Indian territory. A day earlier, the ruler of the erstwhile princely state Maharaja Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession, merging the state with India.

“...All the activities which were carried out by the Indian Air Force and the Army [on October 27, 1947] resulted in ensuring the freedom of this part of Kashmir,” Dev said, according to PTI. “I am sure that someday, the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir will also join this part of Kashmir and we will have the whole of Kashmir in years to come.”

To a question on whether there are any plans to capture Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Dev said there was no such plan at the moment. He, however, said that people in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir were “not being treated very fairly by the Pakistanis”.

The officer also noted that people on both sides of the Line of Control have “common attachments”.

On the Budgam landing of 1947, Dev said that apart from the participation of the Indian Air Force and Army, many small missions contributed to ensuring a free Kashmir, according to ANI.

“After the instrument of accession was signed, we moved in our troops quickly and Srinagar airfield was saved,” he said. “Thereafter we launched a further offensive and pushed the Pakistani military, which came as kabalis [tribals], further back.”

Dev said that if the United Nations had not intervened “perhaps the entire Kashmir would have been ours”.