ISLAMABAD: Former interior minister and chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Interior Rehman Malik has accused the Indian spy agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) of carrying out the Pulwama attack on the Indian military convoy to weaken Pakistan’s stance against its spy commander Kulbhu­shan Jadhav in the International Court of Justice.

Speaking at a press conference on Friday, he said the Pulwama incident had been planned and executed by RAW to influence Jadhav’s trial in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ will hold a public hearing of the case from Feb 18 to 21.

He wondered as to how a vehicle laden with 350kg explosives could come on the highway and attack a well-protected army convoy unless it was facilitated by those having information about the movement of the convey.

Move aimed at weakening Pakistan’s stance against Indian spy Jadhav at ICJ

“The movements of such convoys are always highly confidential. How come someone knew in advance about the movement of the convoy to attack it later?” he asked.

He said that India always issued highly biased statements after such incidents, levelling false allegations against Pakistan. He alleged that the Samjhota Express attack had been engineered and executed by RAW only to blame Pakistan for it before the international community.

He said that DIG Hemant Karkkare of India had exposed RAW and RSS in the Samjhota Express episode before the Supreme Court of India, but he was later assassinated by RAW agents.

Mr Malik strongly condemned the attack on the Indian convoy which left 40 Indian soldiers dead in Pulwama district.

He said that it was very sad that the Indian leadership had developed a habit of levelling baseless allegations against Pakistan without first investigating the matter and the Pulwama incident had also been attributed to Pakistan without providing any solid proof as it had done so in the past after such incidents.

He referred to attacks on Indian parliament and Samjhota Express, besides Mumbai and Uri attacks, and pointed out that India’s own investigators had proved that these terrorist attacks had been skilfully carried out by RAW and the Indian army to defame Pakistan internationally.

He said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was using five tactics in his election campaign to win the coming polls. These were to escalate Pak-India tension at the border, to create a war-like situation, to instigate Hindu-Muslim clashes, to create impression of surgical strikes and to carry out a few Pulwama-like attacks to reverse his sagging popularity among the Indian voters.

Mr Malik said he would continue to expose the Indian mindset against Pakistan, adding that India had a history of false and persistent motivated flag operations. He said that it was a proven fact that India had a history of interference in Pakistan as had been confessed by Indian Prime Minister Modi himself during a speech he made on June 7, 2015, in Dhaka University.

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2019