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

NEW DELHI: 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-emohammed (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”.

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 United Nations Security Council 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.

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”.”

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.