Pakistan strongly rejects the Indian allegations of its intelligence agency's involvement in the Mumbai train bombing July this year, the Embassy of Pakistan stated on Friday in a letter printed in the Christian Science Monitor.
Press Minister, Akram Shaheedi stated in the letter that Pakistan rejects the Mumbai police allegations and has demanded the evidence of such involvement.
Referring to a recent article in the paper, he observed that it was an old methodology of the Indian government to divert the attention of Indians from the chronic problems of poverty and disease by externalising the issue.
He hoped that these baseless accusations would not affect next month's talks between India and Pakistan as part of a composite dialogue process aimed at resolving all outstanding issues between the two countries.
He recalled that during a meeting in Havana, President Pervez Musharraf and the Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh had expressed their firm resolve to pursue the composite dialogue with sincerity and commitment. "The baseless allegations are contrary to the spirit of the joint statement issued in Havana," he wrote.
Commenting on the contents of the article vis a vis Afghanistan, the Press Minister pointed out that the writer seems to be oblivious to the role of Pakistan's security agency in defeating the Soviet Union and the foiling of the London plot hatched to blow up civilian airliners in midair during transatlantic flight.
On the question of resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, Akram Shaheedi referred to the UN report released on September 24, stressing that it amply describes the center of gravity of the Taliban movement inside Afghanistan.
The report states: "The insurgency is being conducted by Afghans operating inside Afghanistan's borders. The insurgency's current center of gravity falls in and around the provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, Uruzgan and increasingly Farah. The Taliban southern command has recently begun to establish parallel civil administrations and courts in its area of operations."