Monitoring border situation, can respond to ‘any attack’: Pak army official
The Pakistani military is closely monitoring the situation along the border with India and is prepared to respond “any attack”, a top army official said on Tuesday even as the defence minister claimed the Uri attack was an “inside job”.
The Pakistani military is closely monitoring the situation along the border with India and is prepared to respond “any attack”, a top army official said on Tuesday even as the defence minister claimed the Uri attack was an “inside job”.
Lt Gen Asim Bajwa, the Pakistani military’s chief spokesman, told reporters in Peshawar that the armed forces were keeping a close watch on the Indian border following a spike in tensions.
“Our soldiers are firmly established at the eastern border and are closely monitoring all developments. We are fully prepared to respond to any attack,” Bajwa was quoted as saying by The Express Tribune.
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He was briefing reporters after a meeting chaired by army chief Gen Raheel Sharif reviewed the security situation. Bajwa said the charges levelled by India over the Uri attack were “upsetting” and Pakistan had never accused anyone without concrete evidence.
India has blamed the attack on an army camp at Uri, which killed 18 soldiers, on the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed terror group. The charge has been rejected by Islamabad. The attack heightened tensions between the two sides.
Pakistan’s defence minister Khawaja Asif described the Uri attack as an “inside job”. During an appearance on Dawn News channel, he said there was “no proof implicating Pakistan in the attack” and alleged it was “evident” the attack was a “plan devised by India”.
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Asif, a close aide of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, also told Samaa News channel that the Uri attack was “self-generated” by India. “India has been involved for several years in the many attacks that have taken place in Pakistan. And I firmly believe that the entire Uri incident is self-generated by India,” he said.
Meanwhile, Gen Raheel Sharif alleged at a meeting held under the auspices of the US Central Command in Germany on Monday that India’s RAW spy agency was spilling “the blood of innocent people through (an) indirect strategy”, according to a military statement.
“Porous Western border and existence of some exploitable spaces, inadequate border management that allows terrorists (to) move, lack of synergy, coordination and institutionalised mechanism of intelligence-sharing still remain our challenges,” Sharif told the meet attended by several army chiefs.
“These challenges were being exploited through confrontationalist and subversive approaches by hostile intelligence agencies like RAW…,” he added.
Sharif further alleged that “India is unwilling to address historical disputes like Kashmir, that directly fan misunderstanding and feed into persistent regional culture of conflict”.
