ISLAMABAD Oct 31: Indian claims that Pakistan is using cross- border terrorism in Kashmir as a policy ploy are “a convenient bogey” used to cover up abuses by Indian soldiers, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said on Thursday.

The accusations, made regularly by Indian ministers, were designed to “cover up the reign of terror let loose by its army in the Indian-occupied Kashmir and to divert attention from the freedom struggle of the Kashmiri people,” foreign ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan said in a statement.

Pakistan accuses Indian troops of raping thousands of Kashmiri women, arbitrarily detaining thousands of political prisoners, and suppressing Kashmiris who want to decide their own future in a plebiscite supported by United Nations Security Council resolutions. —AFP