Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has said that two major terrorist groups operating in Pakistan were \u201cIndian proxies\u201d, adding that Islamabad will present \u201ccomplete evidence\u201d to prove New Delhi\u2019s involvement in the attack on a school bus in Balochistan\u2019s Khuzdar district that killed three children and injured several others.<\/p>\n
At least six people, including three students, were slain while over 40 others \u2014 mostly students \u2014 sustained injuries after a bomb targeted the bus near Zero Point in Khuzdar on the Quetta-Karachi highway when it was on its way to drop the students at the Army Public School in Khuzdar Cantonment.<\/p>\n
The condition of at least a dozen is said to be serious due to critical injuries, officials said, adding that at least 15 girl students were among the injured. Security forces vowed to \u201crelentlessly pursue\u201d the culprits of the attack as Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir visited the injured in Quetta yesterday.<\/p>\n
Speaking on Geo News programme \u2018Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath\u2019 late on Wednesday, Asif asserted there was evidence that the proscribed Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) was working as an Indian proxy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will present evidence of India\u2019s involvement. We will corroborate whatever we have claimed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe relation between BLA and India is well-known as their leadership is in New Delhi. The allegation against us was unsubstantiated but BLA is fighting like an Indian proxy,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
He was referring to the Pahalgam attack last month in occupied Kashmir that killed 26 people, following which India, without evidence, had blamed Pakistan for backing the attackers.<\/p>\n
Asif further said, \u201cBLA and TTP are Indian proxies. They have nothing to do with religion or nationalism, India is financing them and they\u2019re involved in bloodshed here.\u201d<\/p>\n
In reply to a question on dealing with the situation, the minister said that \u201cPakistan will strike with full force and there will be no leniency\u201d, stressing that attacking non-combatants, including school children, was unacceptable.<\/p>\n
Asif said Pakistan called for an investigation into the Pahalgam attack, which India didn\u2019t agree to, adding that the world should be informed that the Narendra Modi-led regime was \u201cvery irresponsible for using a false incident as a pretext to wage a nuclear war\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said Pakistan \u201cwill not start nuclear confrontation but cannot stay silent if nuclear devices are thrown at us\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cPakistan showed restraint, but still India attacked our bases in the dark of the night,\u201d he highlighted.<\/p>\n
A day ago, the military\u2019s media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), also said that \u201cIndian terror proxies are being employed as a state tool by India to foment terrorism in Pakistan against soft targets such as innocent children and civilians\u201d.<\/p>\n
It noted that India had \u201cfailed\u201d against Pakistan\u2019s Operation Bunyanum Marsoos during the recent conflict, and its [proxies] were \u201cbeing hunted [down] by military and law enforcement agencies\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cUse of terrorism as a state policy by [the] Indian political government is abhorrent and reflective of their low morality and disregard of [sic] basic human norms,\u201d the ISPR said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlanners, abettors and executors of this cowardly Indian-sponsored attack will be hunted down and brought to justice and [the] heinous face of India will be exposed in front of the entire world,\u201d the military vowed.<\/p>\n
On Monday, the ISPR said 12 terrorists of \u201cIndian proxy\u201d outfits were killed by security forces in separate engagements in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.<\/p>\n
Last month, ISPR Director General Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said India was activating its \u201cassets\u201d to inte\u00adnsify terrorist attacks in Pakistan. He had detailed the arrest of a Pakistani terror suspect allegedly trained by India as \u201cirr\u00ade\u00adfutable evidence\u201d of state-sponsored terrorism directed by Ind\u00adian military personnel.<\/p>\n
China, Pakistan and Afghanistan agree their soil won\u2019t be used for cross-border terrorism: Dar
\nIn a separate development, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said that during the trilateral meeting between China, Pakistan and Afghanistan, all sides agreed that their soil would not be used for cross-border terrorism.<\/p>\n
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, Dar discussed the possibility of increasing diplomatic engagement with Kabul, referring to a statement by Chinese counterpart Wang Yi. He said, \u201cWe will look into all these aspects. I fully support the idea that we should settle issues with all neighbours. The core principle should be that there should be no terrorism from other countries.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has said that two major terrorist groups operating in Pakistan were \u201cIndian proxies\u201d, adding that Islamabad will present \u201ccomplete evidence\u201d to prove New Delhi\u2019s involvement in the attack on a school bus in Balochistan\u2019s Khuzdar district that killed three children and injured several others. At least six people, including three students, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9377,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9376"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9378,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9376\/revisions\/9378"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}