Pak trashes Dhaka’s ISI claims

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Monday rejected reports about its involvement in the terrorist attack in Bangladeshi capital Dhaka that killed 20 foreigners, including an

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Monday rejected reports about its involvement in the terrorist attack in Bangladeshi capital Dhaka that killed 20 foreigners, including an Indian, as “baseless, irresponsible and provocative”.

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Pakistan’ s foreign office spokesman Nafees Zakaria issued a statement in response to media queries regarding reports of the involvement of Pakistan’s spy agency ISI in last week’s terror attack on a popular restaurant in Dhaka.

“These are highly regrettable, irresponsible and provocative stories being carried in the Indian media. They are utterly baseless and unfounded. Pakistan strongly rejects such allegations,” he said.

The statement came a day after Hossain Toufique Imam, political adviser to Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, suggested ISI involvement. “Pakistan’ s ISI and Jamaat connection is well known ... they want to derail the current government ,” Imam told a TV channel. Rejecting the charges, Zakaria drew attention to a statement by Hasina’ s policy adviser Gowher Rizvi refuting a report that was attributed to him regarding Pakistan’ s involvement.

“Prof Rizvi contacted Pakistan’ s high commissioner to Bangladesh to confirm that he has not issued any statement against Pakistan and that the Indian media reports are false,” Zakaria said.