India defaming us based on a suspect video, Pakistan tells UNSC

Pakistan, in a letter to the UN body’s president, has virtually accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of war-mongering for “domestic political reasons” and accused New Delhi of slandering Islamabad on the basis of a “social media video of completely suspect content”.

A day after the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed a strongly worded resolution condemning the Pulwama terror attack and naming Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Pakistan, in a letter to the UN body’s president, has virtually accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of war-mongering for “domestic political reasons” and accused New Delhi of slandering Islamabad on the basis of a “social media video of completely suspect content”.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi.(Sanjeev Verma/HT FILE PHOTO)

In this video, circulated through social media immediately after the Pulwama attack, the suicide bomber openly claimed allegiance to JeM and took responsibility for the terror strike, which killed 40 troopers of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).

In the letter dated February 22, and addressed to UNSC chief Anatolio Ndong Mba, Pakistan foreign minister Makhdoom.

Shah Mahmood Qureshi asked the Security Council to use its good offices to prevent India from escalating the situation in order to cover up “its own operational and policy failures” and enter into a dialogue with Islamabad and the Kashmiri people.

The letter followed another, also written by Qureshi on February 18, to the UN secretary general asking for a de-escalation from the Indian side and also requesting him to get New Delhi to stop slandering Pakistan for what he termed a home-grown attack carried out by a Kashmiri resident. HT has a copy of both letters.

When the first letter did not wash with the UNSC, which went ahead and condemned the attack in Pulwama, Pakistan, in its second letter, has also gone back to its age-old rhetoric and said India was trying to “portray the legitimate Kashmiri struggle for self determination as terrorism.” Qureshi, in his February 22 letter, referred to human right violations in Kashmir, the right to self-determination in the state, and repeated the 1948 UNSC resolution on a plebiscite in Kashmir without mentioning that even this was subject to the condition that Pakistan withdraw from the parts of the state illegally occupied by it.

The second letter had a copy of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s February 20 address attached to it. In the address, Khan offered to help New Delhi investigate the Pulwama suicide bombing, but warned of retaliation by Pakistan if India carried out an attack over the strike. New Delhi dismissed Khan’s offer, citing Pakistan’s track record in probing the 2008 Mumbai attacks and the 2016 Pathankot terror strike, which too were carried out by Pakistan-based terrorists. India reiterated that was ready for a comprehensive dialogue, but only in an atmosphere free of terror and violence.

Accusing India of trying to blame Pakistan for the attack based on “fallacious assumptions,” Qureshi, in his latest letter, said : “ Simultaneously, for domestic political reasons, India has deliberately ratcheted up hostile rhetoric against Pakistan and created a tense environment. The Prime Minister of India, in several public statements, stoked passions and threatened a befitting response. Among other things, the PM said : ….”There is a lot of anger, people’s blood is boiling …. The next steps will be taken by our armed forces. What should be the time, what should be the place and what should be the form, they have been authorized to take all the decisions”.”

The preceding paragraph of the letter accused India of blaming Pakistan and threatening retributive action without holding an investigation into the attack or providing proof to Islamabad. “The entire basis of India’s unfounded allegation was a social media video of completely suspect content,” Qureshi stated.

Pakistan’s foreign minister also blamed India for “imperiling” the longstanding legal arrangements under the Indus Waters Treaty with “ senior members of its government (water resources minister Nitin Gadkari) threatening to use water as a weapon. His reference was to a recent statement by Gadkari, saying India will ensure that it use its entire share of water from the Indus and its tributaries and that no part of this flowed to Pakistan.