Fawad’s ownership of Pulwama yet another proof of Pak ministers backing terrorism: MEA

Tribune News Service
New Delhi, October 29

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Thursday said a Pakistan minister terming Pulwama attack a success for the Imran Khan government is yet another statement by its leaders supporting terrorism.

The MEA also dismissed Pakistan’s objections to India issuing rules for the purchase of land in the UTs of Ladakh and Kashmir.

This step was among a number of measures being taken for socio-economic development and improving the livelihood of people.

“Such things are India’s internal affairs and no country has the right to ask such questions,” said MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava at a media briefing today.

In what amounted to ownership for the Pulwama suicide attack that killed over 40 Indian security personnel, Pakistan Federal Minister Fawad Chaudhry on Thursday termed it a great achievement under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Apparently riled by a parliamentarian from the Nawaz Sharif camp charging Pakistan army chief of quaking in his boots after India had served an ultimatum for releasing Wg Comdr Abhinandan, Chaudhry said in Urdu, “We attacked India in its own territory…and Pulwama was an achievement under the leadership of Imran Khan. You all (opposition) are also a stakeholder in this success, all of us are stakeholders in this success.”

The PML (Nawaz) parliamentarian, Ayaz Sadiq, while speaking in the Pakistan National Assembly on Wednesday said, “When the Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Bajwa came to meet Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi for a meeting, his legs were shaking and there was sweat on his forehead. Qureshi told him for god’s sake, let Abhinandan go as India was about to attack Pakistan at 9 pm.”

In another Kashmir related development, India has conveyed serious concerns to Saudi Arabia, both to its Ambassador here and in Riyadh, for excluding the undivided J&K and Ladakh from India in its global map on a bank note released to celebrate its Presidency of G-20.

“We have taken up the gross misrepresentation in the official and legal bank note of Saudi Arabia. We have asked the Saudis to take urgent, corrective steps in this direction,” said the MEA spokesperson.

The Saudi development comes at a time when it appeared that Riyadh was no more interested in meeting Pakistan’s desire to raise the Kashmir issue strongly in the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC).

Riyadh had rebuffed Pakistan’s top leadership when it attempted to hold an Islamic summit of non-Saudi Islamic powerhouses like Turkey and Malaysia. It also asked Islamabad to return the $1 billion it had lent as well as stopped supply of concessional oil to Pakistan.