Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who is leading a multi-party delegation on Operation Sindoor in the United States, was posed a question by his son Ishaan Tharoor at a diplomatic meet in Washington DC.
Shashi Tharoor and team is in the last leg of the anti-terror campaign after having visited Guyana, Panama, Colombia and Brazil before arriving in Washington Tuesday afternoon.
Shashi Tharoor's son Ishaan Tharoor is the global affairs columnist with the Washington Post, and asked his father the question in that capacity on Thursday.
What did Shashi Tharoor's son ask?
Ishaan Tharoor inquired about Pakistan's role in the Pahalgam terror attack, asking whether any country had asked for evidence from the delegation about the same.
“I'm curious though, on this tour you've been on various countries in the Western Hemisphere. Have any of your government interlocutors asked you to show evidence of Pakistan's culpability in the initial attack?,” Ishaan Tharoor questioned his father.
He further inquired what the Congress MP had to say on the repeated denials from Pakistan regarding their role in the initial April 22 attack which claimed the lives on 26 people.
‘No one had any doubt’: Tharoor's three reasons why countries did not seek evidence
{{/usCountry}}He further inquired what the Congress MP had to say on the repeated denials from Pakistan regarding their role in the initial April 22 attack which claimed the lives on 26 people.
‘No one had any doubt’: Tharoor's three reasons why countries did not seek evidence
{{/usCountry}}While saying that he was glad the matter was raised, Tharoor jokingly quipped that he had not “planted” the question.
In response to the query, Shashi Tharoor cited three reasons why countries did not ask for evidence on Pakistan's role in the Pahalgam terror attack. He further said that India would not have retaliated in the manner that it did if there had not been convincing evidence on Pakistan's involvement in the attack.
“Very simply, no one had any doubt, and we were not asked for evidence," he said, while adding that the media had posed this question in two or three places.
Tharoor said that there were “three particular reasons” he wanted to draw people's attention to, the first being the “37-year pattern” of Pakistan repeatedly launching terror attacks and denying it later.
“I mean, Americans haven't forgotten that Pakistan didn't know, allegedly, where Osama bin Laden was until he was found in a Pakistani safe house right next to an army camp in a cantonment city,” the Thiruvananthapuram MP said.
He added that Pakistan had also denied any hand in the Mumbai attacks, while saying that one of the terrorists who was captured alive was a resident of the same country. “He told us where he was trained and what was done,” Tharoor said.
For his second reason, Tharoor highlighted The Resistance Front (TRF), which he said was “well-known proxy front of the Lashkar-e-Taiba”, and the group which had claimed to be responsible for the Pahalgam attack.
He said that the TRF, which was banned and listed by the United Nations and the US State Department, was enjoying a “safe haven in the town of Muridke in Pakistan”.
Lastly, Shashi Tharoor pointed out the funerals which were held for members of terror outfits like the Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba after India's May 7 military strikes on terror bases in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.