Pakistan's imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday decried the recent terror attack in Pahalgam as tragic and alarming, while urging India to behave in a more mature and prudent manner.
"Human loss in Pahalgam incident is very disturbing and tragic. I offer my sincerest condolences to the victims and their families," Khan said in a message posted on his X (formerly Twitter) account.
Referring to a previous incident, Khan compared the Pulwama incident to the Pahalgam attack, which he has always defined as a "False Flag Operation." He averred that Pakistan had given all kinds of cooperation to India at the time but no solid evidence was ever brought forth by New Delhi.
"As False Flag Palwama Operation event was taking place, we proposed to cooperate in full with India but India failed to provide us with any tangible evidence. The same was being predicted by me in 2019 and now the same thing is being repeated after Pahalgam incident. Instead of reflection and investigation, Modi Sarkar is blaming Pakistan once again," Khan tweeted, adding that a country as big as India should be more responsible, especially in an area he described as a "nuclear flashpoint."
Khan reaffirmed Pakistan's determination to pursue peace, but warned that this should not be taken as a signal of weakness.
"Peace is my priority but one should not confuse it with cowardice. Pakistan possesses all the means to give a fitting response to any Indian misadventure, as my government, backed by the whole nation, did in 2019," he said. He reaffirmed his longstanding position in favor of the right of self-determination of the people of Kashmir in accordance with UN resolutions.
He also condemned what he termed India's ideological trajectory under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) regime.
India under RSS ideology is a very dangerous threat, not only to the region but even beyond it, Khan cautioned
He went on to argue that the Kashmir issue has actually gotten worse since Article 370 was abrogated, which he insisted merely fueled the wish for independence among the people of Kashmir. At home, he criticized the current Pakistani government for being illegally installed, dividing the nation by controversial election results.
"Indian oppression of Kashmir, fueled by the illegal abrogation of Article 370, has additionally spurred the Kashmiri people towards freedom. Sadly, the nation was divided by an illegitimate government imposed by spurious Form-47 results," he asserted.
Nonetheless, in his opinion, Indian aggression under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has paradoxically brought Pakistanis together against what he called India's belligerent approach.
And yet ironically, Narendra Modi's aggression has united the people of Pakistan against Indian aggression as one voice. In opposition to this pseudo regime, we stand united as one Pakistani nation and denounce Modi's war-mongering and his perilous plans which compromise regional peace.
Khan, who has been behind bars since August 2023 facing a slew of legal cases, concluded his message by underlining the importance of national unity in the face of foreign threats.
It is time to halt all actions that are further polarising the nation. The state's excessive fixation on political victimisation at this critical juncture is causing internal cleavages to deepen and undermining the nation's collective ability to confront external threats," he asserted.
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