Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that there is no place for terrorists in “New Pakistan”.
“We’re already cracking down on them, we’re already dismantling the whole set up,” he said during an interview with the Financial Times. “What is happening right now has never happened before in Pakistan,” he said.
Imran feared that India had been gripped by “war hysteria” that threatened to unleash further hostilities in the run-up to its neighbour’s national elections. “I’m still apprehensive before the elections, I feel that something could happen,” Imran said in the wake of the most serious conflict between the nuclear-armed countries in decades.
The premier also promised to resurrect Pakistan’s economy and denied that the country had become a client state of China.
He insisted that Pakistan did not have any links to Jaish-e-Mohammad, the terror group that allegedly launched a deadly attack on an Indian paramilitary police convoy in Held Kashmir last month. Instead, he cast Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the aggressor for launching a subsequent missile strike that brought the two countries close to war.
Pakistan and India narrowly avoided a full-blown conflict following the February 14 suicide bombing that killed more than 40 Indian paramilitary police. New Delhi broke its long-held policy of strategic restraint and launched an airstrike on an alleged terror training camp inside Pakistani territory. Islamabad responded by shooting down two Indian warplanes, capturing a pilot. Islamabad’s decision to release the pilot within days of his capture helped ease tensions.
Since then, Modi has campaigned across the country addressing crowds with militaristic fervour, threatening on Twitter that his “new India” would give “a befitting reply to those who disturb the atmosphere of peace”.
Indian television channels have also ratcheted up the nationalist rhetoric, prompting Islamabad to blame the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for exploiting the conflict to win over voters ahead of polls in April.
“When Pulwama happened I felt that Modi’s government used that to build this war hysteria,” said Imran. “The Indian public should realise that this is all for winning the elections. It’s nothing to do with the real issues of the subcontinent.”
He redirected blame for the deadly attack to what he called Modi’s “anti-Muslim” government and its heavy-handed policies in Indian-held Kashmir. “There’s Jaish-e-Mohammad in India, the boy who blew himself up, the 19-year-old boy, was a Kashmiri-Indian boy,” he said. “His parents said he was radicalised by some abuse by the security force. So it was an Indian boy, Indian operation, Indian car, Indian explosive. Why was Pakistan blamed?”
However, Imran acknowledged that Pakistan could no longer allow terror groups to organise with impunity on its soil. “We cannot take the stance any more where you have these armed groups in our country,” he said. “We can’t afford being blamed for any terrorist activity, like Pulwama.”