Pulwama attack: Pakistan to give strong reply to India for levelling allegations without probe

Indian government blamed Pakistan for the attack on soldiers in Pulwama district.

ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – Pakistan is likely to give strong reply to New Delhi at diplomatic level for levelling allegations without even investigating the Pulwama attack, sources told.

On Thursday, at least 44 Indian paramilitary soldiers were killed on Thursday in Indian-occupied Kashmir in one the deadliest attacks. The attack saw explosives packed inside a van rip through buses in a convoy of 78 vehicles carrying some 2,500 members of the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).

Two blue buses carrying around 35 people each bore the brunt of the massive blast, heard miles away, around 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the city of Srinagar on the main highway to Jammu.

READ MORE: 44 Indian soldiers killed in Occupied Kashmir attack

Indian government blamed Pakistan for the attack and threatened to isolate it at international level.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said those behind the terror attack would pay a "very heavy price" and had made a "huge mistake".

Union Minister Arun Jaitley said they will take all possible diplomatic steps to ensure "complete isolation" of Pakistan and has withdrawn Most Favoured Nation status to the country.

In a statement issued on Friday, Islamabad strongly rejected insinuation by elements in the Indian government and media circles that seek to link the attack to the State of Pakistan without investigations.

"The attack in Pulwama in the Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir is a matter of grave concern," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated in a press release.

"We have always condemned heightened acts of violence in the Valley."

 Struggle by Kashmiris is indigenous 

Former Chief Minister of Indian Occupied Kashmir Farooq Abdullah has said that pointing finger at Pakistan for yesterday’s Pulwama attack is wrong. Talking to an Indian TV channel, he said struggle by Kashmiris is indigenous but India always blamed Pakistan for everything that happens in Kashmir.

He said it is not the right approach.

Farooq Abdullah said such events will continue to happen if India fails to resolve decades-old Kashmir dispute.  He told India that this issue cannot be resolved with excessive use of force. He said dialogue is the only option to find a permanent solution to this dispute.

‘Well-thought-out conspiracy by India’

In occupied Kashmir, Chairman of All Parties Hurriyat Conference, Syed Ali Gilani, has termed back to back mysterious blasts in the territory as a well-thought-out conspiracy by India.

In a statement in Srinagar, he expressed serious concern and anguish over the killing of a 15-year-old boy, Suhail Ahmed Wani, in Drugmulla, Kupwara, and injuring of dozens of students in Kakapora area of Pulwama due to mysterious blasts.

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He said these bloody plan by India to intimidate the Kashmiri people and divert their attention from the atrocities being committed by Indian troops against them.

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since independence. Rebels have been fighting for an independent Kashmir, or a merger with Pakistan, for 30 years.

Last year was the deadliest in a decade, with rights monitors saying almost 600 Kashmiri people died, most of them civilians. Thousands more have been maimed in recent years by pellet-firing shotguns used by Indian forces.