india

Updated: Jul 24, 2019 10:40 IST

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday claimed Pakistan was needlessly blamed for the Pulwama attack in February, which he said was carried out by a local disaffected Kashmiri and the Jaish-e-Mohammad that took responsibility also operated in India. Pakistan was blamed without a reason.

He said in response to a question if the current crackdown on terrorists and militants in Pakistan would continued and if Hafiz Saeed, whose arrest for the eight time impressed only the US president Donald Trump, would stay in custody this time, and not be released as in previous instances.

Khan tried first to make light of the question that while the country wants and needs an independent judiciary he is being asked to predict what it would do. Without directly answering the Saeed arrest question, he said it was in Pakistan’s interest to now get rid of all armed militias.

“It is in Pakistan’s interest, it’s in our interest,” he continued. “The country has had enough of militant groups.”

The prime minister said the security forces were with him on this. “It’s the army that’s helping us disarm all militant groups.”

“It was clearly an indigenous thing,” Khan went to say at a think tank, US Institute of Peace, referring to the Pulwama attack that took place in Kashmir. “It was a Kashmiri boy radicalized by the brutality the security forces. He blew himself up. But because this group claimed responsibility, which was in India as well, Jaish-e-Mohammad is operating in India — but Pakistan suddenly came in the limelight.”