INDIA ON Friday rejected Pakistan’s allegations of “sponsoring terrorism” against it and said Islamabad “should look inwards instead of pointing fingers”.
On Thursday, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Shafqat Ali Khan had said the attack on the Jaffar Express, which was hijacked by Baloch rebels, was orchestrated from abroad, but did not directly implicate India. He had said the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) rebels were in contact with their handlers based in Afghanistan throughout the train siege.
When asked if Pakistan had changed its policy from blaming India in the past for BLA activity, Khan had denied and said the accusations against India hold even today.
“There is no shift in our policy. And again, the facts have not changed. India is involved in sponsoring terrorism against Pakistan. What I was referring to was, in this particular incident, we have evidence of calls being traced to Afghanistan. This is what I said,” he had said. To another question, he claimed that India has been trying to destabilise its neighbouring countries.
Responding to this, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement on Friday: “We strongly reject the baseless allegations made by Pakistan. The whole world knows where the epicentre of global terrorism lies. Pakistan should look inwards instead of pointing fingers and shifting the blame for its own internal problems and failures on to others.”
Pakistan has said that 21 hostages were killed in the train siege which began on Tuesday afternoon, when rebels blew up the railway track and hurled rockets at the Jaffar Express when it was on its way to Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province from Balochistan’s capital of Quetta. The siege ended the next day, with Pakistani security forces saying they had killed all 33 attackers.
On Thursday, the Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson had said the rebels were in direct communication with Afghanistan-based planners throughout the incident. “We urge Afghanistan to hold the perpetrators, organisers and financiers of this reprehensible act of terrorism accountable and cooperate with the government of Pakistan to bring all those who are concerned with this attack, including the real sponsors of terrorism, to justice,” Khan had said. -With PTI
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd