India must stop ‘maligning practices’, warns Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Warning India to stop maligning practices, Pakistan on Wednesday rejected the “baseless and frivolous” accusations made by Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, calling the Indian official’s tirade a “reflection of growing frustration” over New Dehli’s failure to malign and isolate Islamabad.

Earlier this week, the Indian minister made a veiled attack on Pakistan during a press conference in Vienna along with his Austrian counterpart Alexander Schallenberg.

“We spoke on the threats to international peace and security that are posed by terrorism, including its cross-border practices, violent extremism, radicalisation and fundamentalism. Their effects cannot be contained within a region especially so when they are deeply connected to narcotics and illegal weapons trade, and other forms of international crime. Since the epicentre is located so close to India, naturally our experiences and insights are useful to others,” he alleged.

Responding to media queries Wednesday, Foreign Office Spokesperson Mumtaz Zehra Baloch said: “Pakistan rejects the baseless and frivolous accusations made by the Indian External Affairs Minister. His latest tirade is a reflection of growing frustration over India’s failure to malign and isolate Pakistan.”

She said that for the last several years, India has engaged in a malicious campaign to mislead the international community through a fictitious narrative of victimhood and vile anti-Pakistan propaganda.

The official added that India’s continued anti-Pakistan diatribe cannot hide its brazen involvement in fomenting terrorism on Pakistan’s soil; nor can it conceal the reality of state-sponsored terrorism in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).

“Instead of pointing fingers at others, India should itself end its involvement in terrorism, subversion, and espionage against Pakistan.” Only a few weeks ago, she said, a dossier was released containing irrefutable evidence that substantiated India’s involvement in the 2021 terrorist attack in a peaceful Lahore neighbourhood.

“From the death of over 40 Pakistani nationals on Indian soil in the 2007 Samjhota Express tragedy to the arrest of Kulbhushan Jadhav, a serving Commander of the Indian Navy, from within Pakistan in 2016, the evidence of Indian involvement in terrorism and sabotage is irrefutable and spans over decades and geographies,” she recalled.