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Tahir Andrabi speaking at the weekly Foreign Office press briefing Photo file: X/FO
ISLAMABAD:
The Foreign Office on Wednesday rejected what it said were “baseless, misleading, and unwarranted” remarks by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs on Pakistan’s ongoing action against terrorist infrastructure in Afghanistan.
Pakistan has been conducting air strikes against terrorist targets in Afghanistan as part of the now temporarily paused Operation Ghazab Lil Haq. On Tuesday, the Taliban regime’s deputy spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat claimed in a post on X that an airstrike had hit the Omid Addiction Treatment Hospital, killing up to 400 people in the Afghan capital overnight.
However, Pakistan forcefully rejected the Afghan Taliban claims, terming the allegations “entirely baseless” and part of a wider pattern of misinformation aimed at distorting facts.
Information Minister Attaullah Tarar had said the strikes carried out on the night of March 16 were “precise, deliberate, and professional”, targeting only military and terrorist infrastructure linked to attacks inside Pakistan.
Responding to the Indian statement, Spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said: “Pakistan rejects the baseless, misleading, and unwarranted statement issued by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs on Pakistan’s ongoing action against terrorist infrastructure in Afghanistan.
“Against the backdrop of India’s active sponsorship of terrorism directed at Pakistan from Afghan soil, as well as its historical role as a spoiler, this statement merely reflects India’s blatant hypocrisy and duplicity.”
It said it must be recalled that Indian leadership remained unaccountable despite “instrumentalising Islamophobia for domestic electoral gain and perpetrating pogroms against its Muslim population”.
The spokesperson said that only a few weeks ago, its leadership pledged full and unequivocal support to “another occupying power responsible for the ongoing killing of thousands of innocent Palestinians”, apparently referring to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s expression of solidarity during a visit to Israel.
“It is preposterous for a state that has historically undermined the sovereignty and territorial integrity of its neighbouring countries, in violation of international law and the principles of the United Nations Charter, to comment on the upholding of such principles.
“Such statements cannot divert attention from the fact that India has been, and continues to, suppress and deny the right to self-determination of Kashmiris in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, in violation of relevant UN resolutions,” it read.
He said India must refrain from supporting and sponsoring terrorist groups operating from Afghan soil, including those listed under the UN Security Council sanctions list.
“In this regard, India should cease its misplaced lament over Pakistan’s successful counter-terrorism measures,” the statement concluded.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s spokesman for foreign media, Mosharraf Zaidi, refuted the Afghan Taliban’s claims of targeting a hospital and civilians, adding Pakistan’s recent strikes in Afghanistan were aimed solely at terrorists and grounded in precise intelligence, driven entirely by the need to protect its citizens, state broadcaster Pakistan TV reported.
