Pakistan Railway Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed on Thursday threatened India with nuclear war. Speaking to Samaa TV, he said if India attacks Pakistan, it will descend into an “atomic war”.

Ahmed said the Pakistan Army was far inferior to India’s in conventional weaponry, and would therefore have to use a nuclear bomb. “This will be a bloody, last and atomic war,” he said. “Our [nuclear] weapon will be very calculated, miniature and perfect, and will target India while protecting the lives of Muslims.”

Ahmed claimed that Pakistan now has nuclear weapons that can reach Assam. “Pakistan does not possess enough conventional weapons, so India knows that [in a war], whatever will happen, will happen.”

This is not the first time Rasheed has threatened India with war. In August last year, he predicted that a full-fledged war would be fought between India and Pakistan in October or November over Kashmir. Ahmed claimed that it was time for the “last battle for the liberation of Kashmir” and the war with India would be “full and final”.

The Pakistani minister made the remarks at an event in Rawalpindi to show solidarity with the people of Kashmir. Ahmed also blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for causing trouble in Kashmir and said that it was because of “Hitler Modi that we smell war over Kashmir”.

The Pakistani minister’s views are a departure from Prime Minister Imran Khan’s opinion about a war between New Delhi and Islamabad. Khan has stated on two separate occasions that a war between the two nuclear-armed countries would not end well.