Islamabad: Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has alleged that India was helping terror groups in his country after India rejected Pakistan's claim that it was carrying out “attacks” from Afghanistan. “India has designs on Pakistan and is helping militants to carry out heinous acts inside Pakistan,” Asif told Dawn News.
He said that India wants to keep Pakistan busy with “skirmishes on the eastern border so that the country remains distracted from the war on its western borders and the terrorism within.”
“The Taliban have links with India. Also, India's involvement in the insurgency in Balochistan cannot be ignored,” Asif alleged.
When asked to provide evidence for his accusation, the Minister dodged the question and proceeded to claim that “a low intensity war was underway”.
He said that his allegations were based “as much on conviction as on experience.”
Government representatives in Pakistan have been repeatedly making statements against India with Prime Minister's Adviser on National Security and Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz yesterday accusing India of using Afghanistan's soil to carry out attacks in the country. “They are involved in the attacks on Pakistan from Afghanistan,” Aziz had said.
India had rejected the charge and termed it as an effort to obscure the challenge posed to the region from Pakistan-based terrorist safe havens. Reacting sharply to Aziz's remarks, Official Spokesperson in the External Affairs Ministry Syed Akbaruddin said in New Delhi yesterday, “We all know, who is upstreaming terrorism and who endeavours to downstream terrorism. It is certainly not India.”
