Pakistan rejected all claims of cross-LoC infiltration on Tuesday. The Pakistani High Commissioner dismissed all allegations as baseless and hollow.
Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar had summoned Pakistani envoy Abdul Basit on Tuesday, issuing him a “strong demarche” over continuing cross-border terrorism from Pakistan, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted.
He added that the “demarche made specific reference to LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba) terrorist and Pak national Bahadur Ali who was apprehended recently.”
Ali, a resident of Pakistan’s Lahore was arrested by Indian authorities in Jammu and Kashmir on 25 July with weapons including “AK-47 rifle, live rounds, grenades and grenade launcher and also sophisticated communication equipment and other material of Pakistani/international origin,” Swarup added.
Ali had also confessed that he infiltrated into India after receiving training in Lashkar-e-Taiba camps. He had been, since then, in touch with an ‘operations room’ of LeT getting instructions to attack Indian security personnel and carry out terrorist attacks in India.
The government of India strongly protests against the continued infiltration from Pakistan of trained terrorists with instructions to carry out attacks. This is contrary to assurances given by the Pakistani leaders at the highest level.
Basit’s summoning came on a day when Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached out to the people of Kashmir, which has been witnessing widespread unrest for over a month triggered by the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in an encounter with the security forces.
The strain in bilateral relations between the two countries was also on full display during Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s visit to Islamabad for a SAARC ministerial meet last week.
(With inputs from IANS and PTI.)
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