New Delhi: On March 14, India came down heavily on Pakistan after an official alleged India of “sponsoring terrorism” and trying to destabilise its neighbouring countries, after a Baloch rebel group hijacked a train in Pakistan from Quetta to Peshawar that led to the death of 25 people.
India strongly rejects the “baseless allegations” made by Pakistan, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said in an official statement on Friday.
“The whole world knows where the epicenter of global terrorism lies,” official spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said. “Pakistan should look inwards instead of pointing fingers and shifting the blame for its own internal problems and failures on to others.”
The statement came in response to media queries on the remarks made by “the Pakistan side”, the Ministry said.
Earlier, Pakistan’s foreign office spokesperson Shafqat Ali Khan had said that the train attack was coordinated from abroad, most likely Afghanistan. NDTV reported that Khan said that the BLA rebels “were in contact with their handlers based in Afghanistan throughout the train siege” which began on Tuesday afternoon.
“India is involved in sponsoring terrorism against Pakistan. What I was referring to was, in this particular incident, we have evidence of calls being traced to Afghanistan. This is what I said,” NDTV quoted the Pakistani official as telling reporters.
On March 11, Tuesday, the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) – a rebel group based in the Pakistani province of Balochistan – hijacked the Jaffar Express near Quetta in Balochistan after detailing it with explosives. The train was carrying more than 400 passengers. The BLA said that it was holding more than 200 people hostage and had threatened to start executing them unless authorities met its 48-hour deadline for the release of Baloch political prisoners and activists, according to a report by NDTV.
On Wednesday, the Pakistani army said that it had concluded its 30-hour rescue operation and said that it had killed all 33 rebels of the BLA, including suicide bombers. The hijacking, however, claimed the lives of 21 civilians and four security personnel.
