India responds to Imran Khan’s tweet on Kashmir with a stinging takedown

Imran Khan’s tweet was a reference to the death of six civilians in a blast at a house in south Kashmir on Sunday.

Pakistan’s leadership should look inwards and fix its own issues rather than support and glorify terrorists against India, the foreign ministry said on Monday, hitting out at Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan for his condemnation of what he had described as a “new cycle of killings of innocent Kashmiris” by security forces.

Imran Khan’s tweet was a reference to the death of six civilians in a blast at a house in south Kashmir on Sunday. Police say the people had gone too close to the house where an encounter between security forces and terrorists had just ended. Kashmiri separatists had called for a shutdown in the region over the civilian casualties.

The cricketer-turned-politician’s tweet that drew a sharp reaction from New Delhi also came just a day after a border action team of Pakistan army crossed the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir and killed three Indian soldiers in an ambush.

Khan had repeated his stance that the solution to the issue lay in dialogue. “It is time India realised [that] it must move to resolve the Kashmir dispute through dialogue in accordance with the UNSC resolutions and the wishes of the Kashmiri people,” he had said.

The foreign affairs ministry dissed Imran Khan for his country’s “deceitful stand on dialogue”

“Pakistan’s deceitful stand on dialogue, while supporting terror and violence, stands exposed to the whole world,” the foreign ministry said in reaction to Khan’s tweet.

The ministry said Pakistan would serve the interest of the people of the region by taking credible action against all kind of support to terrorism and terror infrastructure from all territories under its control rather than supporting and glorifying terrorists and terror activities against India and its other neighbours.

“Instead of making comments on India’s internal affairs, Pakistan leadership should look inwards and address its own issues,” ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said.

In September, India called off a meeting scheduled between Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and India’s external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj that was to take place in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session.

The Indian foreign ministry had explained its decision to the “latest brutal killings of our security personnel by Pakistan-based entities and the recent release of a series of twenty postage stamps by Pakistan glorifying a terrorist and terrorism”.