NEW DELHI: India has dismissed as “false and malicious” the propaganda by Pakistan’s foreign secretary who claimed that two Pakistanis (both are designated terrorists in India) were killed in connivance with Indian agencies in 2023.
Pakistan foreign secretary Muhammad Syrus Sajjad Qazi appeared to allude to the killing of Shahid Latif, a designated terrorist in India who masterminded an attack on the Indian Air Force station in Pathankot (2016) and Muhammad Riaz, a LeT terrorist who conducted an attack in Dhangri village in Rajouri in January 2023.
“We have seen reports regarding remarks by Pakistan’s foreign secretary. This is their latest attempt at peddling false and malicious anti-India propaganda,” said MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal.
Jaiswal sought to remind Pakistan about its role in many terror attacks. “The world knows Pakistan has long been the epicentre of terrorism, organised crime and illegal transnational activities. India and other countries have warned Pakistan that it would be consumed by its own culture of terror and violence,’’ he said.
India said Pakistan will reap what it sows. “To blame others for its own misdeeds can neither be a justification nor a solution,’’ he said.
Earlier on Thursday, the Pakistan foreign secretary told the media about what he claimed was “credible evidence’ of links between Indian agents and the killings of two Pakistanis in Sialkot and Rawalkot last year.
Qazi went further to claim that India was running a sophisticated and sinister campaign of extra-territorial and extra-judicial killings inside Pakistan. “Indian agents used technology and safe havens on foreign soil to commit assassinations in Pakistan. They have recruited, financed and supported criminals, terrorists and unsuspecting civilians to play defined roles in these assassinations,’’ Qazi alleged.
Explaining the modus operandi of these two killings, Qazi said that Latif was killed on October 11, 2023 outside a mosque in Sialkot through an Indian agent based in a third country. The killing of Riaz took place on September 8 inside a mosque in Rawalakot.
Pakistan currently has a caretaker government headed by Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar. The general election in the country is due February 8 but many observers have doubted the timing of elections.