Pakistan: India ‘staged’ Uri attack

In an absurd allegation that reflects its constant denial of watertight evidence of its hand in terror attacks, Pakistan has now accused India of “staging” the Uri terror attack to serve its “tactical and propaganda objectives”. The allegation was levelled on Tuesday at the UN General Assembly in New York by Islamabad in response to external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj’s stinging rebuke to Pakistan on Monday. In New York, India again lashed out at Pakistan on Tuesday, asking how safe terror havens continued to exist in that country despite the Pakistan Army’s “much-vaunted” anti-terror operations and Islamabad receiving billions of dollars in counter-terror aid. At the UN Human Rights Council In Geneva on Tuesday, India mounted another onslaught, listing all the evidence that linked Pakistan to the Uri attack.

But in New York, Pakistan on Tuesday said, “The attack on the Indian Army base in Uri, particularly its timing, has all the hallmarks of an operation designed to divert attention from India’s atrocities in J&K. The international community is well aware that several such incidents have been staged in the past to serve India’s tactical and propaganda objectives.” Islamabad also accused New Delhi of trying to destabilise Balochistan and referred to the “capture” of former Indian Naval officer Kulbhushan Yadav, a businessman after retirement whom New Delhi suspects was abducted — by Pakistani intelligence — from Iran where he was based.

Pakistan’s absurd allegation highlights that it is not serious on even probing the Uri attack which was carried out by Pakistani militants in a cross-LoC operation masterminded by the Pakistan Army and ISI. This is despite evidence of Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab, who was caught alive during the Mumbai attack, and Islamabad later sending a team to probe the Pathankot attack which was also carried out by terrorists from Pakistani soil.

As India put it at the UNGA, “This is what we have come to expect from Pakistan. Deception, deceit and denial.”