Pakistan accepts role in Pulwama, hails it as Imran govt’s ‘achievement’

A Pakistani minister on Thursday made a starting admission about the Imran Khan government’s role in the Pulwama terror attack that claimed the lives of 40 CRPF personnel. While addressing the Pakistan National Assembly, Imran Khan’s cabinet minister Fawad Chaudhry credited the Pakistan Prime Minister and his party PTI for the “success in Pulwama” and hailed it as a great achievement. “Humne India ko ghus ke mara [We have hit India in its own territory],” the minister told the parliament.

Fawad Chaudhry’s statement in the National Assembly was in reaction to Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Sardar Ayaz Sadiq’s statement that legs were shaking in a top leaders’ meeting wherein Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi pleaded for the release IAF pilot Abhinandan Varthaman. Sadiq did not mention the date of the meeting but indicated that it was held before the release of Abhinandan Varthaman.

Fawad termed Sadiq’s statement false and said, “The victory we achieved in Pulwama is the victory of this nation under the leadership of Imran Khan. You are also a part of this victory.”

The 37-year-old IAF pilot, Abhinandan Varthaman, was captured by the Pakistani Army on 27 February after his MiG-21 jet was shot down in a dogfight with Pakistani plane during aerial combat. A day before, the IAF jets had bombed the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terror camps in Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan and avenged the Pulwama terrorist attack that claimed the lives of 40 CRPF personnel.

The Pakistan government has refuted its role in the Pulwama terror attack. Pakistan PM Imran Khan had refused to even admit the presence of terrorist launch pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, which were used to carry out the attack, even as Pak-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed took responsibility for it. PM Khan in fact went to the extent of saying that the attack was an “indigenous thing”.