WhatsApp transcripts: Onus now on world to take India to task, says FO

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Sunday hoped that following the release of WhatsApp transcripts by the Mumbai police, the international community would hold India accountable for its state-sponsored actions vitiating the environment and endangering peace and security in South Asia.

“The reckless regime of New Delhi has shown how its actions are driven by considerations of domestic politics while gravely imperiling regional peace and security,” said the Foreign Office in a statement.

The Foreign Office did not name the Republic TV anchor Arnab Goswami, a confidante of Prime Minister Modi. “These transcripts have further exposedIndia’s sinister designs and vindicated Pakistan’s long held position.

In recent months, the world community has been presented with irrefutable evidence of India’s state-sponsorship of terrorism against Pakistan and anti-Pakistan disinformation and smear campaign globally,” said the Foreign Office. It pointed to the transcripts which illustrate the unholy nexus between the ‘Hindutva’ regime and its cronies in the Indian media.

“On the one hand, they show how far and deeply the extremist agenda of the RSS-BJP combine has permeated India’s institutions and pillars of the State, on the other, they show how the rights and freedoms of Indian citizens and democratic values in Indian society are being seriously jeopardised through cynical manipulation,” added the Foreign Office.

“The latest revelations further confirmed what Pakistan had consistently pointed out: The BJP government stages “false flag” operations; maligns Pakistan with terrorism-related allegations; stokes hyper-nationalism in the country; claims to have launched so-called ‘surgical strike’; and then deviously manipulates national sentiment in its bid to win elections.”

The pattern is unmistakable, and has been repeated to suit the RSS-BJP regime’s electoral calculations, it added. “We had, at the outset, rejected India’s malicious propaganda against Pakistan and highlighted that the biggest beneficiary of the Pulwama attack in February 2019 was the BJP government, as it secured landslide victory in the ensuing Lok Sabha elections,” said the Foreign Office.

The transcripts provide further evidence of how this whole enterprise from ‘false flag’ operation to massive electoral success was scripted and fully realized. “Pakistan, for its part, will continue to counter Indian falsehoods with truth and act firmly and responsibly in the face of India’s provocations,” it assured.