Pakistan on Saturday unveiled a dossier containing “irrefutable evidence” of India’s sponsorship of terrorism in the country and called on the international community to take notice and make efforts for peace and stability in South Asia. In a joint press conference with Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Maj Gen Babar Iftikhar in Islamabad, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi condemned the recent ceasefire violations by India across the Line of Control (LoC) and said the purpose of the presser was to show “the real face of India” to the world. “The state that used to say that it was the world’s biggest democracy is [now] becoming a rogue state through its activities. We have information and evidence on the basis of which I can say India is fanning state terrorism. India has prepared a plan to destabilise Pakistan,” Qureshi began. He said that he had been highlighting India’s activities at different levels and fora but it was time to take the nation and the world community into confidence because he believed further silence was not in the interest of Pakistan and regional stability.
The foreign minister said Pakistanis had faced 19,130 terrorist attacks between 2001 and 2020 and suffered more than 83,000 casualties in the war against terrorism. The country also suffered monetary losses of at least $126 billion. “After 9/11, the world saw that Pakistan has become a front-line state. While Pakistan was making sacrifices in ‘blood and treasure’, India was busy laying terrorist networks using its own soil and the spaces in [Pakistan’s] immediate neighbourhood and beyond. “Today, we have undeniable evidence and we want to show it in the form of this dossier to the nation and the world,” Qureshi said. In the last three to four months, [people] may have felt that terrorism was being fanned in the nation again, he said, citing recent attacks in Peshawar and Quetta as examples.
Ahmad Imran
Karachi
