No doubt India was behind stock exchange attack: PM

‘What happened in Mumbai, they wanted to do the same in Karachi; they wanted to spread uncertainty. We have no doubt this was done by India,’ says Imran while addressing National Assembly

Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that Pakistan has no doubt that India was behind Monday’s terrorist atack on the Pakistan Stock Exchange in Karachi.

“What happened in Mumbai, they wanted to do the same in Karachi; they wanted to spread uncertainty. We have no doubt this was done by India,” he said while addressing the National Assembly on Tuesday.

He praised a police sub-inspector and three private security guards who lost their lives while thwarting the atack on the stock exchange as the “heroes of Pakistan.”

“They gave sacrifices and thwarted a major incident, which was planned by India to destabilise us,” he said, adding that the atackers had a lot of ammunition and they wanted to take hostages.

Imran said that “chair” [office of the prime minister] “comes and go” and “I never said that the chair was very strong. I have it today, it may not be with me tomorrow.” He asked his party lawmakers never to be afraid or fearful of leaving the chair.

From day one, the premier said, the opposition has been saying that the government has failed. “It did not allow me to deliver my speech ater my election as prime minister. It wants the government to go soon so that it can save its thet.”

He said if he was “minused” [ousted as the prime minister], the man replacing him would not give “NRO” (amnesty) to the opposition leaders, who have plundered and looted Pakistan.

Imran severely criticised the top leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League-nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari. The premier specifically atacked PML-N parliamentary leader in the National Assembly and said that when he goes abroad, he poses himself as a liberal, but “I say they are liberally corrupt. The PML-N has no ideology or faith as it at times pretends to be liberal and at others take money from radical elements.”

The prime minister said that he would continue to stick to his ideology and principles and would never budge from them. He talked about bringing about massive reforms to improve sick government departments that were devouring billions of rupees annually without producing anything.

Meanwhile, thirty-eight Indian High Commission officials in Islamabad headed homewards through the Wagah Atari Border crossing ater Pakistan asked India to cut the size of its diplomatic staff by half in a tit-for-tat response to the neighbouring country’s similar move.

According to sources, the Indian High Commission officials, including six diplomats, let by two buses and a truck for the Wagah border.

According to sources, 100 Pakistani nationals including families of diplomatic staff will return to Pakistan via Wagah Border.

Earlier, in an email to AFP, the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility and said the assault was not only targeting “Pakistan’s economy” but was “an atack on Chinese economic interests in response to China’s exploitative plans in Balochistan.”

The BLA has long accused China of plundering Balochistan, the largest of Pakistan’s four provinces that makes up the southwestern part of the country.

The separatists say Chinese-backed projects unfairly exploit the region’s mineral and hydrocarbon resources. Pakistan has repeatedly turned to Beijing for investments and loans including under the $54-billion China-pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that Western critics say will be of greatest benefit to China in the long run.

The BLA has targeted infrastructure projects and Chinese workers in Pakistan multiple times in recent years, including an atack on Beijing’s consulate in Karachi that killed four people in 2018.

In May last year, the BLA atacked a luxury hotel near Gwadar, where a deepwater port development is a CPEC flagship project.

The BLA is just one of several insurgent groups fighting primarily in Balochistan, which has been rocked by separatist and sectarian violence for years.

Separately, Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan said that negotiations between the Afghan government and the insurgent Taliban were expected to begin soon but that the release of 5,000 prisoners and a reduction of violence were the final hurdles.