India blaming us without concrete evidence: Pak on Uri attack

Islamabad, Sept 24: Pakistan's Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan on Saturday accused India of blaming Pakistan for the Uri terror attack without having any concrete evidence and ruled out any immediate cooperation with India in probing the incident.

"India itself does not have any evidence about the (Uri) attack so how will Pakistan help in carrying out any investigation," Khan said while talking to the media. He also accused India of hurling baseless allegations against Pakistan after the attack at the army camp in Uri.

"India is responsible for levelling false accusations on us when the investigations are not even completed," he said.

Khan also ruled out any immediate cooperation with India over the attack and accused the Indian government of launching a 'malicious campaign' to defame Pakistan by prematurely blaming it for the Uri attack. He said India imposed censorship on its media when it questioned its allegation about Pakistan.

"We did not impose any censorship on the media but they did because their propaganda was earlier exposed by their own news channels," he said.

Diplomatic tensions between India and Pakistan have been rising since the September 18 attack on an army base in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir that killed 18 Indian soldiers. Pakistan has rejected allegations of its involvement in the assault.

Meanwhile, Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Nafees Zakaria in an interview with state-run Pakistan Television (PTV) on Friday said India has the habit of blaming Pakistan for any untoward incident particularly in Kashmir.

"Kashmir is the main bone of contention between Pakistan-India relations. We have always tried to resolve the issues with India through dialogue," he said. Zakaria said India has always blamed Pakistan but could not provide evidence, Radio Pakistan reported.

He alleged that India was involved in subversive activities in Balochistan and Karachi and is financing terrorists to destabilise Pakistan. He said India wants to divert the attention of the world from its brutal activities in Kashmir by levelling allegations against Pakistan.

He said the OIC has also strongly condemned the Indian atrocities against the innocent Kashmiris. To a question, he said Pakistan is the biggest victim of terrorism. He said seventy thousand civilians and seven thousand security personnel have been martyred in the war against terrorism.

PTI