ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office on Saturday rejected as “unsubstantiated” Delhi’s allegations linking Pakistan to the purported botched terrorist attack in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

Indian Chargé d’Affaires was summoned to the FO to reject the allegations that were initially levelled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and on Saturday repeated by the Ministry of External Affairs when Pakistani Cd’A in Delhi was called for registering protest over the so-called planned attack.

The FO said the Indian allegations were meant to “mischievously implicate” Pakistan in what is being claimed as a “foiled attack” in Nagrota in Occupied Kashmir.

Islamabad, New Delhi summon each other’s envoys to register protest

The Indian MEA had claimed that a major terrorist attack by Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) was foiled by Indian security forces in Nagrota on Nov 19. The Pakistan Cd’A, the MEA said, was conveyed the Indian government’s “serious concerns” at continued terror attacks by JeM against India. India had further claimed that the attack appeared to be aimed at derailing the local district development council elections, which are being held in Occupied Kashmir in phases from Nov 28 to Dec 19.

Pakistan was through the demarche given to the Cd’A asked to not allow the “territory under its control” to be used against India.

PM Modi had in his tweets on Friday claimed that a terrorist plot was “thwarted” after four “terrorists” belonging to JeM were “neutralised” by Indian security forces.

The FO, while dismissing the Indian allegations, said that these were “entirely baseless and unsubstantiated” and part of “India’s desperate attempts to divert international attention from its state-terrorism in IIOJK (Occupied Kashmir) and its state-sponsorship of terrorism against Pakistan”.

Pakistan, the FO reminded, had made public “irrefutable evidence, extensively documenting India’s active planning,

promoting, aiding, abetting, financing and execution of terrorist activities in Pakis­tan” in the shape of a dossier on Nov 14.

Published in Dawn, November 22nd, 2020