ISLAMABAD: Foreign Office on Saturday refuted the Indian minister for external affairs Jaishankar’s ‘unwarranted and tendentious’ comments blaming Pakistan for the current state of India-Pakistan relations.

Responding to media queries regarding the Indian minister’s comments made at a recent online think-tank event, Foreign Office spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhry said ”We completely reject these unwarranted and tendentious comments, blaming Pakistan for the current state of India-Pakistan relations”.

Rather than reflect on its own egregious behaviour marked by illegal and unilateral actions in IIOJK, gross and systematic violations of human rights of unarmed and innocent Kashmiris, unabashed anti-minority policies and actions, incessantly bellicose statements against Pakistan, and aggressive steps in the shape of intensified violations of ceasefire along the Line of Control, India resorts to fabrications and baseless allegations against Pakistan. Clearly, an acknowledged perpetrator of state-terrorism cannot masquerade as a ‘victim’ of terrorism, he added.

He stated that portrayal of innocent Kashmiri youth, women and children, martyred in fake “encounters” and “cordon-and-search” operations, as terrorists to divert the world’s attention from the unacceptable actions of Indian occupation forces in IIOJK is a travesty, reflective of the moral bankruptcy of the Indian leadership.

He said it was the RSS-BJP regime’s dangerous policies of ‘Hindutva’ and ‘Akhand Bharat’ that continue to victimize the Kashmiris in IIOJK and squeeze the space for the minorities in India on the one hand, and create problems with nearly all of India’s neighbours on the other hand. Obviously, ‘normal’ relations with its neighbours remain contingent upon India beginning to act normally, he added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020