We are sending evidence to the United Nations, says Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi
Pakistan said on Saturday that India was sponsoring “terrorism” aimed at destabilizing the country and targeting its economic partnership with China, accusations that senior Pakistani officials made at a dramatic press conference.
Pakistan and India routinely accuse each other of attacking each other, but this was a rare occasion when Pakistani officials said they had prepared a mountain of evidence to support the charges against their South Asian rival.
At a joint press conference in the capital Islamabad, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, along with military spokesman Major General Babar Iftikhar, said that Indian intelligence agents were operating from neighboring Afghanistan to plan attacks within the Pakistani borders.
“India was allowing its land to be used against Pakistan for terrorism,” Qureshi said, adding that New Delhi was also planning attacks from “neighboring countries.”
Mr. Qureshi said Pakistan is sending its evidence to the United Nations to demand that India be censured, warning that “without international intervention it is difficult to guarantee peace in nuclear South Asia,” a region where both India and Pakistan they possess nuclear weapons.
“We have irrefutable facts that we will present to the nation and the international community through this file,” said the Minister.
There were no immediate comments from Indian officials on the Pakistani government’s claims. New Delhi has also accused Pakistan of sponsoring militant groups that have carried out attacks within its borders in recent years.
The presser comes a day after the Pakistani military said that five civilians and an army soldier were killed by shelling by Indian troops across the highly militarized border that separates the Pakistani and Indian sides of Kashmir. The disputed border in the Himalayan region is a source of long-standing conflict between the two powers.
Iftikhar, who heads the public relations and media bureau of the Pakistani armed forces, presented some of the evidence in the dossier purporting to show India’s involvement in the attacks inside Pakistan, including bank receipts showing funds and photos showing the alleged perpetrators of attacks inside the Indian consulate in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
Iftikhar added that Indian intelligence agents were especially targeting Chinese development projects that have come with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
The military spokesman also accused India of sponsoring banned organizations, including UN-designated terrorist groups such as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and Allah Nazar’s Baluch Liberation Army.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Afghan Foreign Ministry, Great Hewad, said on Saturday that Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan plans to visit Afghanistan next week.
The Foreign Ministry said that this will be Mr. Khan’s first visit to Kabul as Prime Minister of Pakistan. It was not mentioned whether he would raise Pakistan’s accusations of Indian interference.
.
