Pakistan, on Wednesday, claimed it has ‘credible intelligence’ that India is planning military action against it in the next 24-36 hours and warned New Delhi that there would be consequences.
The statement came hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Tuesday, told the top defence brass that the armed forces have ‘complete operational freedom’ to decide on the mode, targets and timing of India’s response to the Pahalgam terror attack, government sources said.
Tensions have risen between the two countries after the Pahalgam terror attack last week that killed 26 people. Modi had said that India will ‘identify, track, and punish’ the terrorists and their ‘backers’; attack and pursue the killers to the ‘ends of the earth’, as India stepped up the diplomatic offensive against Pakistan.
Pakistan’s Information Minister, Attaullah Tarar, said that the Indian government is preparing to carry out military action against Pakistan on the basis of ‘baseless and concocted allegations’ regarding Pakistan’s involvement in the recent terror attack in Pahalgam.
According to the statement, the minister said that Pakistan had itself been a victim of terrorism and had always condemned it in all its forms and manifestations. He added that Islamabad had offered a ‘credible, transparent and independent’ probe by a neutral commission of experts, and accused India of evading investigation and choosing a confrontational path.
Pakistan urged the international community to remain alive, warning that any military adventurism by India would be ‘responded to assuredly and decisively’ and that the ‘onus of any escalatory spiral and its consequences shall squarely lie with India’.
Earlier, India announced a raft of measures against Pakistan including expulsion of Pakistani military attaches, and the suspension of the Indus Water Treaty of 1960.
