FO rebukes Indian foreign minister’s comment implying Pakistan’s involvement in terrorism

FO rebukes Indian foreign minister’s comment implying Pakistan’s involvement in terrorism

ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office (FO) on Monday “categorically rejected” Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s remarks insinuating that Pakistan was involved in “international terrorism”.

According to the Indian news outlet The Hindu, Jaishankar, while speaking at an event in Vadodara city on Saturday, said: “No other country practices terrorism in the manner in which Pakistan has done. You show me anywhere in the world what Pakistan has done for so many years against India.”

According to the report, he said that India was thought of as an “expert in IT (Information Technology)” while Pakistan was known as an “expert in International Terrorism”.

Responding to his “unfounded remarks”, the FO, in a press release issued today, said they were “yet another manifestation of the Indian leaders’ obsession to concoct facts with respect to terrorism for misleading the international community and to point fingers at neighbours in a bid to mask India’s own well-known credentials as a state-sponsor of terrorism and a serial violator of human rights.”

The FO said that “nowhere is state-terrorism more evident” than in Indian-occupied Kashmir (IoK) where occupation forces continued to “terrorise, torture and torment innocent Kashmiris with impunity”.

“The world is also aware of the ‘saffron terror’ orchestrated and unleashed by the BJP-RSS (Bharatiya Janata Party-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) zealots against Muslims in India,” the press release added.

The FO said that Pakistan’s contributions towards ensuring world peace, such as successful counter-terrorism operations to its role in the global fight against terrorism, were “widely acknowledged” by the international community.

It added that Pakistan was the “only country” to stem the tide of terror directed against it from “elements and states with inimical motives”.

“In reality, India has been involved in supporting terrorism against Pakistan from its own territory and from other countries in the region.

“India’s mischievous campaign to masquerade as a ‘victim’ of terrorism and seeking to hoodwink the world community by hypocritically levelling allegations against Pakistan is pathological,” the press release said, pointing to the example of Indian spy Kulbhushan Yadhav as a serving Indian navy officer and intelligence operative who was involved in “planning, supporting, abetting and executing terrorist activities in Pakistan” and remained a “stark reminder of India’s true face of a state sponsor of terrorism”.

The FO called on the international community to hold India “accountable for its patronage of terrorist entities and for instigating unrest in neighbouring countries”.

It also advised India to “abjure its policy of state terrorism” in IoK and against its Muslim minority and allow Kashmiris to exercise their right to self-determination, instead of “levelling baseless allegations against Pakistan”.