India Today interview: Surgical hit would have ‘elicited swift response’

Basit said by blaming Pakistan, India was leaving no room for cooperation

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit has rejected the Indian claims of a 'surgical strike' across the Line of Control (LoC), saying Pakistan would have immediately reacted, if any such strike had taken place inside its territory.

"As far as the government of Pakistan is concerned, there was no surgical strike whatsoever, otherwise they would have responded immediately," he said in an interview with India Today.

He also dismissed the claim of a 'video evidence' of strike that India claimed had been carried out many kilometers inside Pakistani Kashmir against so-called ‘launching pads of terrorists.’

"There can't be any video ... Because the surgical strike did not take place. No surgical strike across the LoC was conducted in the dark hours of September 29," he said.



He said by blaming Pakistan, India was leaving no room for cooperation.

"If India believes Pakistan has done it then the best way forward would be to have an international probe," he added.

Abdul Basit termed postponement of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) summit a ‘collective loss’ for all countries involved.

He hoped that Pakistan would host the 19th summit in future. "We are confident that Pakistan will host the 19th summit if not this year, then sometime next year," he said.

When questioned about Balochistan, Basit said, "The people of Balochistan are as patriotic as people in other parts of Pakistan but we do have worries because there is a larger question of a foreign agenda of destabilising Pakistan," he said.

"You would recall that earlier this year we arrested a man called Kulbhushan Yadav, and that corroborated what Pakistan has been saying all along. So to that extent, we are worried... Some forces are trying to undermine Pakistan," he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 14^th, 2016.