The Foreign Office (FO) on Monday rejected a statement by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs denying the ‘irrefutable evidence’ provided by Islamabad regarding India’s sponsorship of terrorism in the country.
“Fully exposed, India has typically resorted to sophistry, obfuscation and re-fabrication. Bland denials and regurgitation of an old litany of charges, however, will not change facts,” a statement issued by FO spokesman Zahid Hafeez Chaudri said. “The dossier presented by Pakistan extensively documents India’s active planning, promoting, aiding, abetting, financing and execution of terrorist activities against Pakistan. Since 2001, Pakistan has faced more than 19,000 terrorist attacks on its soil and suffered 83,000 causalities. The direct economic losses have been upward of $126 billion. As a result of India’s sponsorship of terrorism, from across our borders, Pakistan continues to suffer immensely,” the FO said.
“Meanwhile, India has mischievously masqueraded as a victim of terrorism and sought to mislead the international community by hypocritically levelling terrorism-related allegations against Pakistan,” Chaudhri said. “It has also conducted false flag operations in occupied Kashmir and inside India to malign Pakistan. That facade has now been removed and the world can see the real face of India – one blackened by its decades-long state terrorism in occupied Kashmir and state-sponsored terrorism and destabilisation efforts in Pakistan,” he added.
“The most familiar and undeniable face of India’s state sponsorship of terrorism against Pakistan is Commander Kulbhushan Jadhav – caught red-handed in March 2016. His complicity in subversion, sabotage and terrorism in Pakistan is part of the incontrovertible evidence against India,” the spokesman said. “The world is also familiar with “saffron terror” orchestrated and unleashed by the RSS-BJP zealots against Muslims in India and against Pakistan,” he went on to say. “Masterminds of Makkah Masjid, Ajmer Dargah, and Samjhota Express terrorist cases, like Swami Aseemanand, have been granted full state protection and acquitted in a complete travesty of justice after having confessed to India’s National Investigation Agency,” he added.
“Open threats to Pakistan by Indian civilian and military leaders, India’s sinister design to subvert China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and public statements by noted Indian politicians and senior security officials on ‘teaching Pakistan’ a lesson through the use of terrorism constitute further incriminating evidence.”
The presence of ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) and AQIS (Al-Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent) in India, as highlighted in recent UN reports, indicate that India is emerging as a hotbed of UN designated international terrorist organisations and posing a great risk to the region, he said.
“Recent revelations by FinCen files illustrate how India uses its financial system for money laundering and other illegal activities such as terrorism financing – brazenly and with impunity,” he said. “Use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy by India makes it culpable under international law, UN sanctions regime, and international counter-terrorism conventions. It is the collective responsibility of the world community to hold India to account and take practical steps to proceed against the Indian nationals involved in patronage of terrorist entities,” the FO spokesman added.
He said Pakistan expects UN counter-terrorism bodies to proceed on the basis of concrete evidence provided by Islamabad and urge India to renounce use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy. “The UN must also play its part in dismantling the Indian terrorist infrastructure, details of which have been provided in the dossier,” he concluded.
On Saturday, Pakistan had made public a dossier containing ‘irrefutable proof’ of the Indian sponsorship of terrorism in Pakistan and called on the world to stop India’s rogue actions for saving the region’s peace and security. Pakistan has accused its arch-rival neighbour of aiding and abetting terrorism for destabilising the region in the past as well, but this time the allegations were backed by specific evidence of financing, training, harbouring, and weapons supply in the shape of copies of correspondence, bank transactions and communication intercepts.
