Balakot air strike: Indian Mirage 2000 fighter jets dropped laser guided bombs on JeM camp last month.
Highlights
- Pak said that dossier did not show any link with JeM chief Masood Azhar
- "It is a well-known fact that Masood Azhar is based in Pak": Ministry
- Also said same script followed by Pak after attacks in Mumbai, Pathankot
Pakistan has followed its past scripts in its response to the Jaish-e Mohammed's suicide attack in Pulwama by being "in denial", the foreign ministry said on Thursday. India had handed over the dossier -- detailing the results of the investigation into the February 14 Pulwama attack and the Jaish complicity in it -- to Pakistan's Acting High Commissioner on February 27. Islamabad on Thursday said that the dossier did not show any link with Jaish chief Masood Azhar.
"India is disappointed at Pakistan's response to our detailed dossier on the Jaish-e-Mohammed's complicity in the cross-border terror attack in Pulwama, the presence of its terror camps and leadership in Pakistan," the foreign ministry spokesperson said.
"Pakistan should abide by the commitment it gave in 2004, and which its current leadership has recently repeated, vowing not to allow any territory under its control to be used for terrorism against India in any manner. Pakistan should take immediate, credible, irreversible and verifiable actions against terrorists and terror organisations operating from territories under its control," the statement read.
Hours after the February 14 attack on a convoy of the Central Reserve Police Force, in which 40 men were killed, Jaish had accepted responsibility. It had also posted a video of the alleged killer, a Kashmiri man called Adil Ahmed Dar.
Islamabad said after receiving the dossier, it had formed a 10-member team to probe the attack. The members were officials of Federal Investigation Agency, equivalent to the Central Bureau of Investigation. But "no linkage of Pakistan was found with the Pulwama incident".
"The Indian dossier does not claim any linkage of Masood Azhar with the Pulwama incident," Foreign Office spokesperson Muhammad Faisal was quoted as saying on Thursday by news agency Press Trust of India. "We have informed India that we are ready to cooperate if they provide actionable intelligence and evidence that will sustain the threshold of Pakistani courts, we are ready to work on that," he added.
The Foreign Ministry said they were "hardly surprised, as this script was followed by Pakistan in past, after the terror attacks in Mumbai in 2008 or in Pathankot in 2016".
It is a well-known fact that Masood Azhar is based in Pakistan. This was again acknowledged recently to international media by the Foreign Minister of Pakistan, the ministry said. "There's no dearth of sufficient actionable information and evidence in Pakistan itself to take action against them, if there is sincerity and intent to do so," the statement read.
In April 2016, after visiting the Pathankot air base after a terror attack by Jaish-e Mohammed, a team of Pakistani investigators said the Indian authorities had failed to provide evidence to prove the air base was attacked by terrorists from Pakistan.
Following Pakistan's denial, the opposition had strongly criticised the government for hosting the team and allowing them access to the air base.