-Gurdawara attack in Kabul
By Asghar Ali Mubarak
ISLAMABAD: Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday strongly rejected the officially-inspired reports in the Indian media, seeking to link Pakistan with the terrorist attack on a Gurdawara in Kabul on March 25, as “highly mischievous and condemnable” attempt.
A press release of the Foreign Office spokesperson said as for the motivated reports in the Indian media, these were patently designed to malign Pakistan.
“India’s overall smear campaign against Pakistan is well-known. Seeking to implicate Pakistan in this terrorist attack is part of the desperate attempts, India is making to divert attention from its own unacceptable actions and state-terrorism in Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IOJ&K),” it added.
It said Pakistan had already strongly condemned the dastardly terrorist attack on the Gurdawara in which so many precious lives were lost. “Places of worship are sacrosanct and their sanctity must be respected at all times. The perpetrators of this heinous crime must be brought to justice,” it added.
It expressed the confidence that such Indian ploys would not succeed in misleading the world community. As a country that had
suffered the most from and fought resolutely against the scourge of terrorism, including state-sponsored terrorism emanating from across the border, Pakistan firmly believed that such despicable terrorist acts have no political, religious or moral justification, it added. Pakistan on Tuesday rejected reports circulating in the Indian media that linked Pakistan’s security agencies to an attack on a gurdwara in Afghanistan last month. At least 25 people were killed in the attack on a Sikh temple in Afghanistan’s capital on March 25 where worshippers were offering morning prayers. The attack had been claimed by the militant Islamic State (IS) group.
According to a report by Indian publication India Today, Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) on Saturday arrested Abdullah Orakzai alias Aslam Farooqi, the mastermind behind the attack, who they claimed had ties to Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The India Today report also added that Orakzai alias Farooqi enjoyed “close relations” to the Haqqani network and the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
Responding to these allegations, the Foreign Office in a statement said it rejected the “officially-inspired reports” and termed the move “mischievous and condemnable”.
Terming these news reports part of a “well known smear campaign against Pakistan”, the FO spokeswoman said these were “patently designed to malign Pakistan”. “Seeking to implicate Pakistan in this terrorist attack is part of the desperate attempts India is making to divert attention from its own unacceptable actions and state-terrorism in India-occupied Jammu & Kashmir.” The FO said Pakistan remained “confident that such Indian ploys will not succeed in misleading the world community”.
