- Envoy says India closing all doors of cooperation
Dismissing as “fictional” Indian claims of conducting a successful “surgical strike” against terror launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) on September 29, Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit said on Wednesday Islamabad would have “immediately retaliated” if that indeed had been the case.
The envoy, in an interview with India Today, said India’s claim that it had conclusive video evidence of the surgical strike seemed “fabricated” as the sting operation conducted by an Indian television channel showed a police superintendent at Mirpur, Azad Kashmir, telephonically confirming the cross-border action by Indian Special Forces.
“No such surgical strikes took place. There was only cross-border firing by Indian troops (on September 29), in which two Pakistan army soldiers were martyred. Pakistan responded to it immediately and proportionately,” averred the envoy.
“Had there been any surgical strike, Pakistan would have retaliated immediately. We did not need any reaction time. It seems to me the term surgical strike is being used very loosely in India,” he said, adding, “No Indian soldiers crossed the LoC, there was only cross-border firing.”
The Indian government has failed to release evidence of the surgical strike in the shape of photographs, infrared images or a video footage because according to New Delhi, it does not want to push the Pakistan army into a corner, nor compromise operational details, tactics, techniques and equipment used in the cross-LoC raids.
Asked what message Pakistan got from the strikes, Basit said since there was no strike, there was no question of Pakistan getting any message.
On being asked if he would accept that Pakistan was isolated internationally after the Uri terror attack, Basit said that Pakistan had suffered more from terrorism than any other country. “We don’t need any lecture from anybody on it,” he added.
“India has left no room for cooperation. It is closing all doors of cooperation with Pakistan. When it starts blaming and terming Pakistan a terrorist state it means it is closing all doors of cooperation,” he said.
Basit further remarked that “we want to get out of this blame game, so why India do not get an international investigation of the incident instead of indulging in a blame game against Pakistan”.
About investigation into the Pathankot attack, the high commissioner said that the investigation was underway.
About the SAARC summit which was to be held in November this year but was postponed, Basit said the postponement of conference was a collective loss for all member countries and “we are determined that Pakistan will host the 19th SAARC conference”.
Asked about the Balochistan issue, Basit said the people of Balochistan were as much patriotic as the people of other parts of the country, but Pakistan was concerned over foreign agenda of destabilising Pakistan.
About Indian spy agency RAW agent Kulbhuhsan Jhadav’s arrest in Pakistan at the beginning of this year, the envoy said that his arrest supported Pakistan’s stance that certain powers were out to destabilise the country.
To a question on political asylum by India to Baloch leader Brahamdagh Bughti, the envoy said, “A handful of individual don’t represent Balochistan.”