Media report exposes Pakistan’s double-faced policy: Congress

Reacting to a Pakistan media report on the JIT’s stand that the Pathankot attack was “staged” by India, the Congress on Tuesday said it had exposed the neighbouring country’s “double-faced policy” on terrorism.

“We could not have expected anything better from Pakistan, when its own state agencies are complicit both in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks and the attack on the strategic Indian Air Force base in Pathankot in Punjab,” senior Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma said.

“We had questioned the visit of Pakistan’s Joint Investigation Team (JIT), which included a representative of the Inter-Services Intelligence. Surely, the JIT and the ISI would not have indicted themselves,” he added.

“We also know that both Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba are operating from Pakistan because of its overt and covert support and assistance they have received and will continue to receive,” Sharma said.

Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala said: “They (JIT) came to our country with a predetermined agenda and went after levelling allegations. Even China has come to their rescue in the United Nations by vetoing a move to declare JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar as terrorist.”

“Reports in Pakistan media quoting leaked contents of the JIT team on the Pathankot attack has once again exposed the double-faced policy of Pakistan in dealing with terrorism.”

Sharma said: “First, it happened post-Ufa when there was an attack in Udhampur in Jammu and Kashmir; then Gurdaspur in Punjab; and then after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dramatic visit to Lahore and Raiwind to his Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif’s residence, we saw the attack in Pathankot after five days.”

“What the prime minister (Modi) and his government claimed as a diplomatic triumph turned out to be a diplomatic disaster,” said Sharma.

Sharma also took a dig at Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah.

“Shah had given a certificate of sincerity to Pakistan. He heads the ruling party but lacks even an elementary comprehension of the strategic issues involved and the complexity of relations between Pakistan and India,” the Congress leader said.

“We would like to make this clear that after or during the JIT visit, Pakistan establishment and its agencies used the occasion to portray India in bad light.”