Pakistan on Sunday denied its role in the Pulwama terror attack, saying that accusations were India’s tactics to put the blame on the neighbours for its security and intelligence failures. Pakistan also said that the accusations were consistent with “well-rehearsed tactics from Indian playbook after such previous incidents”.
“These knee-jerk and pre-conceived accusations were rejected also because they were made within a short time after the attack and without any investigations,” Mohammad Faisal, spokesperson of Ministry of Foreign Affairs Pakistan, tweeted on Sunday.
Pakistan’s statements have come two days after 40 CRPF personnel were killed when a Jaish-e-Mohammed suicide bomber, identified as Adil Ahmed Dar, rammed his 200 kg explosive-laden SUV into a CRPF convoy in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama district on February 14.
“India needs to introspect and respond to questions about its security and intelligence lapses that led to this attack.”
Mohammad Faisal also attacked India for accepting the confession video of Pulwama suicide bomber Adil Ahmed Dar but not that of Kulbhushan Jadhav, who they have sentenced to death after accusing him of being an Indian spy.
“Dichotomy in Indian position is evident while it accepts the unverified social media content about JeM claims of responsibility and video of the attacker as “gold standard”, it goes into denial mode when confronted with voluntary confessions and acceptance of responsibility by its serving Naval commander Jadhav for perpetrating terrorist violence in Pakistan,” Mohammad Faisal said.
On Saturday (February 16), Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said nobody can browbeat the country for the brutal Pulwama terror attack even as he offered to fully cooperate in any probe into the incident if India shares any evidence with it.
Shah Mahmood Qureshi, in a recorded a video message from Germany where he is attending the Munich Security Conference, claimed that India, without investigation, in a knee-jerk reaction, blamed Pakistan for the terror attack.
“It is easy to blame Pakistan but it will not solve the problem and the world will not be convinced,” he said in the message, which was released by the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) on its official Twitter account.
“We know how to defend ourselves. We can also present our point of view across the world. Our message is peace and not conflict,” Qureshi said.
Qureshi said Pakistan was ready to fully cooperate with India if it shares evidence.
“If India has any evidence (about involvement of elements in Pakistan in the Pulwama attack), it should share with us. We will investigate with full honesty and see if it was right. And I say with full confidence that we will cooperate. Because we do not want disturbance,” he said.
Condemning the incident, Shah Mahmood Qureshi further said, “Violence neither was, nor is our policy.”
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