Pak PM Imran blames India for Karachi attack
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan told Parliament on Tuesday that there was “no doubt” that India was behind Monday’s attempted attack 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,” Imran Khan said, referring to the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which more than 160 people were killed.
In his address, he also praised a police sub-inspector and three security guards who lost their lives during the attack. He called them “heroes of Pakistan”.
“They gave sacrifices and thwarted a major incident, which was planned by India to destabilise us,” he said, adding that the attackers had a lot of ammunition and they wanted to take hostages.
“My cabinet and its ministers know that all our agencies were on high alert. Our agencies preempted at least four major attempts of terrorism and two of them were around Islamabad.
“We were fully prepared ... this was a huge win for us,” he said, paying tribute to the security agencies.
On Monday, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi made a similar claim.
Reacting sharply to Qureshi’s remarks, India described it as “absurd comments.” In a strongly-worded response, external affairs ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said unlike Pakistan, India has no hesitation in condemning terrorism anywhere in the world, including in Karachi.