No hand in Kashmir attacks, says defiant Pakistan

Pakistan on Monday reacted sharply to India’s assertion that terrorists from across the border were responsible for the recent deadly attacks in Kashmir and that Islamabad’s support to Mumbai terror attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed was nothing short of “mainstreaming of terrorism”.

Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said, “We have taken a serious note of the remarks made by the spokesperson of the Indian ministry of external affairs.”

“Pakistan firmly rejects the baseless allegations about ‘mainstreaming of terrorism’. Pakistan has been in the forefront of combating terrorism and is also its biggest victim,” she said in a statement.

Lashing out strongly, India on Friday had said Pakistan’s support to UN-designated terrorist and Mumbai terror attacks mastermind Saeed and his proscribed Jamaat-ud-Dawa was “nothing short of mainstreaming of terrorism”.

Also, the KashmirValley on Friday was rocked by four terror attacks by militants from across the border who stormed an army camp in Uri leaving 11 security personnel, including a Lt colonel, dead and killed two civilians in Tral.

Srinagar and Shopian were the other two places where the militants struck.

Terming the attacks as most unfortunate, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said the militants came from across the border and fired at the jawans and security men at a camp.

Aslam dismissed India’s assertion that militants came from across the border, saying, “We also reject the equally baseless allegations and efforts to malign Pakistan by implicating it in the recent attacks” in Kashmir.

She said, “On the contrary, if any evidence of mainstreaming of terrorism in India was needed, one only had to look at the perpetrators of Samjhauta Express terrorist attack and its masterminds.”

The Foreign Office spokesperson said Pakistan takes its obligations under the UN Security Council mandate very seriously.

“India has to understand that the people of Jammu and Kashmir would accept nothing short of their right to self-determination, promised to them by the United Nations Security Council and accepted by India and the international community,” Aslam said.