Islamabad, March 15: The State Minister of Health of Pakistan Zafar Mirza on Sunday raked up a controversy by asking the Indian government to lift all lockdown in the territory of Jammu and Kashmir amid the coronavirus outbreak. Mirza made the comments while expressing his views during the video conferencing of SAARC Summit.

Expressing his views, the Pakistani Minister said, "It is a matter of concern that COVID-19 has been reported from Jammu & Kashmir and in view of health emergency, it is imperative that all lockdown in the territory must be lifted immediately." SAARC Video-Meet on Coronavirus: PM Modi Proposes to Set Up COVID-19 Emergency Fund, Says India Will Initially Contribute USD 10 Million.

Here's the ANI tweet:

He also said, "We believe that SAARC Secretariat does provide us platform that can bring us together & we believe that we need to use this platform for pooling of resources; technical expertise, national experiences & even financing that can be used by SAARC members."

Earlier, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi proposed to the SAARC members to create a COVID19 emergency fund. He said, "I propose, we create a COVID-19 emergency fund. This could be based on voluntary contributions from all of us. India can start with an initial offer of 10 million US dollars for this fund."

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 15, 2020 07:53 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).