NEW YORK – Pakistan was not involved in the Pulwama incident in Indianoccupied Kashmir, a spokesman of the Pakistani Embassy in Washington said,while deploring India’s habit of blaming everything that goes wrong on hiscountry.
In a letter to The Washington Post, Spokesman Abid Saeed expresseddisappointment over the newspaper’s February 20, editorial for its“sweeping and one-sided commentary and reliance on unverified Indian mediaaccounts.”
“The editorial,” he said, “overlooked India’s history of blaming everythingthat goes wrong in Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, or even in India, onPakistan.
“The frenzy that the Indian government has whipped up around the (Pulwama)incident has already resulted in innocent Kashmiris being attacked andhounded across India.
This is happening on top of the unspeakable atrocities they have sufferedover the decades that are duly documented in international reports.”
Already, the spokesman said, voices within India were urging it to lookinward instead of blaming Pakistan for events in Kashmir.
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“The editorial spoke of India’s ‘right to defend itself’ without evenhinting at the Kashmiris ‘right of self-determination’ promised to them bythe United Nations”, he wrote.
“Pakistan wants the Indian government to present the ‘incontrovertibleevidence’ it claims to have. The Pakistani prime minister has offered Indiacooperation and action if credible evidence is provided. We expect India torespond positively to these offers.
“As a victim of cross-border terrorism, Pakistan is ready to work withIndia and others to address this menace in our region.
India should be counseled restraint because, as Pakistan’s Prime MinisterImran Khan said, starting a war is easy but ‘ending it would not be in ourhands’.
