India says Pak PM Imran’s true face exposed after SPOs killings
A day after the Modi Government confirmed External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s talks with her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi on the sidelines of the upcoming United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York next week, India on Friday called off the meeting citing Pakistan’s complicity in the “brutal” killing of three policemen in Jammu & Kashmir as well as the release of postal stamps glorifying Kashmiri terrorist Burhan Wani.
Accusing Pakistan and Prime Minister Imran Khan of “evil designs” after three policemen were kidnapped and killed by terrorists in Shopian in J&K, India said talks with Pakistan in such an environment would be “meaningless”.
“The true face of the Pakistan Prime Minister has been exposed in his first few months in office,” said Ministry for External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Raveesh Kumar here on Friday.
“The latest brutal killings of our security personnel by Pakistan-based entities and the recent release of a series of 20 postage stamps by Pakistan glorifying a terrorist and terrorism confirm that Pakistan will not mend its ways,” the MEA Spokesperson said.
He noted that “two deeply disturbing developments have taken place” since Thursday’s announcement of a meeting between the Foreign Ministers of India and Pakistan in New York later this month. “In view of the changed situation, there will be no meeting between the Foreign Ministers of India and Pakistan in New York,” he said.
Eyebrows were raised on Thursday as India confirmed the meeting even though incidents of cross-border killings of Indian security personnel did not stop and Islamabad was seen to be setting the agenda for the meeting rather than the New Delhi. India on Thursday gave green signal to the meeting following Pakistan Prime Minister’s September 15 letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking the resumption of dialogue between the two countries.
On Friday, the MEA said, “After Imran Khan’s letter, we thought Pakistan is moving towards positive changes, a new beginning. But now it seems behind their proposal were evil intentions.”
India is also furious over the release of 20 special stamps by Islamabad glorifying Burhan Wani — the Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist killed by security forces in 2016 — in the guise of solidarity with Kashmiris.
While agreeing to the meeting after Imran Khan’s request, New Delhi had sought to clarify on Thursday that it would be “just a meeting” and “not resumption of dialogue”. “Let’s distinguish between meeting and dialogue. This doesn’t change our stand on terrorism,” MEA spokesman a had said day before. He said the Government has agreed to the meeting but no agenda has been set so far.
This would have been the first high-level talks between the two sides since the Pathankot terror strikes from Pakistan in 2016. The Pathankot attack on January 2, 2016, by a heavily armed Pakistani group in the Pathankot Air Force Station had then led to a similar breakdown of the dialogue resumption process between the two neighbours.
On Friday morning, three policemen were dragged out of their homes in Kashmir’s Shopian by terrorists and killed. On Tuesday, a BSF jawan’s body was found mutilated with his throat slit after he went missing when the Pakistan Rangers fired at a patrol team clearing elephant grass along the international border.
The Modi Government’s confirmation of the meeting even after the discovery of the mutilated corpse of the BSF soldier was questioned by the Opposition in the light of the BJP Government’s past refrain that there would be no talks unless there was a cessation of terrorist activities by Islamabad.
The Opposition Congress targeted the Government on its Pakistan policy after the killings. “On September 19, 2018, the USA clearly stated that Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Tayyeba are main contributors to terror, they are linked to Al-Qaeda,” said Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi. “The Government has betrayed each and every part of Jammu & Kashmir. The mutilations are unspeakable horror,” he said.
