• Pakistan hits back at Indian MEA’s remarks.
• Says masterminds of Gujarat massacre hold key positions in India.
• FO adds India is sponsor and financier of terrorist groups.

Pakistan on Saturday rejected the Indian criticism of Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto’s remarks calling PM Narendra Modi “butcher of Gujrat” and said that no verbosity can hide the crimes of the “Saffron terrorists” in the country. 

Bilawal Bhutto’s statement during a press conference at the United Nations had angered the Indian government and sparked anti-Pakistan in New Delhi.

Responding to media queries regarding yesterday’s statement by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, Spokesperson Mumtaz Zehra Baloch said: “With its statement, the Indian government has tried to hide behind subterfuge and canard to conceal the realities of the 2002 Gujarat massacre. It is a shameful story of mass killings, lynching, rape, and plunder. The fact of the matter is that the masterminds of the Gujarat massacre have escaped justice and now hold key government positions in India.” 

In its statement, the Foreign Office said that Hindutva, the political ideology of the ruling party, has given rise to a climate of hate, divisiveness, and impunity.

“The culture of impunity is now deeply embedded in Hindutva-driven polity in India. The acquittal of the mastermind and perpetrators of the heinous attack on Delhi-Lahore Samjhota Express, that killed 40 Pakistani nationals on Indian soil, demonstrates the massacre of justice under the RSS-BJP dispensation,” said the statement. 

The FO also said that the intimidation and demonetisation of religious minorities receive official patronage in states across India, adding that the Hindutva supremacists have been unleashed to exercise cow vigilantism, ransack places of worship, and attack religious congregations.

“As it peddles a fictitious narrative of victimhood, it is itself a perpetrator of repression in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) and a sponsor and financier of terrorist groups in South Asia,” said the statement issued. 

Only this week, a dossier was released containing irrefutable evidence that substantiated India’s involvement in the 2021 terrorist attack in a peaceful Lahore neighbourhood, said the FO. 

It added that the evidence gathered with international support confirms that the Lahore attack was instigated, planned, and financed by the Indian state.

“The MEA statement is also a reflection of India’s growing frustration over its failure in maligning and isolating Pakistan. After being unable to prevent Pakistan’s exit from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Grey List in October and international recognition of Pakistan’s counterterrorism efforts, India is desperately using international platforms to advance its agenda to defame and target Pakistan,” the statement noted. 

“For a country with a grandiose vision about itself and its place in the world, India is following a policy of pettiness towards its neighbours. We are confident that the international community would look through this facade and the dream of RSS-BJP to turn South Asia in its image will remain unrealised,” the Foreign Office added.