Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Saturday dismissed Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s remarks on the Pahalgam terror attack, saying he does not wish to give much importance to statements coming from Islamabad.
Omar Abdullah Abdullah criticised Pakistan for first denying the incident and then shifting blame onto India, calling the attack “unfortunate” and stressing that such incidents should never happen.
“First of all, they did not even recognise that something had happened in Pahalgam. First, they said that India was behind it,” the J-K CM said.
He further added, “For the people who made allegations against us in the first place, it is difficult to say anything about it now. I don’t want to give much importance to their statements. Whatever happened is unfortunate, and it should not have happened…”
On Saturday, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed Islamabad’s willingness to participate in a “neutral, transparent, and credible” probe into the attack, Dawn reported.
Addressing a passing-out parade at the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul, situated in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, PM Shehbaz said, “Continuing with its role as a responsible country, Pakistan is open to participating in any neutral, transparent and credible investigation.
Calling Pakistan the “world’s frontline state against terrorism,” Shehbaz Sharif further claimed that the country has “endured immense loss.”
“As the world’s frontline state against terrorism, we have endured immense loss, without 90,000 casualties and economic losses beyond imagination, exceeding USD 600 billion,” PM Shehbaz stated, according to Dawn.
A day earlier, Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khwaja Asif had admitted that his country has been funding and backing terrorist groups.
In a video clip that went viral, Pakistan’s Defence Minister was in conversation with Sky News’s Yalda Hakim, when she asked him, “But you do admit, you do admit, sir, that Pakistan has had a long history of backing and supporting and training and funding these terrorist organisations?”
Khwaja Asif in his reply said, “We have been doing this dirty work for the United States for about three decades… and the West, including Britain…That was a mistake, and we suffered for that, and that is why you are saying this to me. If we had not joined the war against the Soviet Union and later on the war after 9/11, Pakistan’s track record was unimpeachable.”
The Pakistani Defence Minister in the interview with Sky News presenter Yalda Hakim warned of an “all-out war” with India. Following the terror attack in Pahalgam that killed 26 people, the Central government announced several diplomatic measures, such as closing the Integrated Check Post (ICP) at Attari, suspending the SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme (SVES) for Pakistani nationals, giving them 40 hours to return to their country, and reducing the number of officers in the High Commissions on both sides.
India also halted the Indus Waters Treaty signed in 1960 in the wake of the Pahalgam attack. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also assured the country that the terrorists responsible for this attack, along with those who conspired to commit it, will face punishment beyond their imagination. The Prime Minister asserted that the time has come to eliminate the remaining strongholds of terrorism and that the willpower of 140 crore Indians will now break the backbone of the perpetrators of terror. (ANI)
