By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office on Thursday denounced what it called a renewed Indian campaign of “baseless allegations and propaganda” tying Islamabad to the terrorist attack that killed 26 people in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir exactly one year earlier, describing the accusations as an attempt to distract from New Delhi’s own policies in the long-contested territory.
The statement came one day after the anniversary of the April 22, 2025, assault in Pahalgam, a scenic meadow in occupied Kashmir popular with tourists. Gunmen opened fire on civilians there, most of them visitors from elsewhere in India, in what was widely described as the deadliest attack of its kind in the region in a quarter-century. India immediately blamed Pakistan for orchestrating or supporting the strike, a charge Islamabad has consistently rejected while calling for an independent investigation.
In its statement Thursday, the Foreign Office said Pakistan was engaged in diplomatic efforts with international partners to promote regional peace and security, making India’s actions particularly regrettable. “It is deplorable that India has once again resorted to a campaign of baseless allegations and propaganda to link Pakistan with the Pahalgam incident,” the statement read. “It is unfortunate that, in the midst of an ongoing regional crisis, India remains focused on weaponising its false narrative against Pakistan for narrow domestic political gains.”
The Foreign Office also referenced the brief but intense military confrontation that followed the attack last year. After India suspended the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty — a critical water-sharing agreement between the two nations — and launched airstrikes on Pakistani territory, Pakistan responded with Operation Bunyanum Marsoos. Pakistani officials have described the operation as a decisive counter to Indian “misplaced adventurism.” The fighting, which included tit-for-tat strikes on air bases and the downing of multiple Indian jets, ended with a ceasefire on May 10, 2025, brokered by the United States.
“After receiving a befitting reply to its misplaced adventurism in the form of Operation Bunyanum Marsoos last year, such allegations constitute yet another chapter from India’s playbook of creating a smokescreen for its continued sponsorship of terrorism across the region,” the Foreign Office said. The statement went further, arguing that the accusations could not obscure India’s “continued occupation” of Jammu and Kashmir and its denial of the right to self-determination for Kashmiris, in violation of United Nations resolutions. It also criticized New Delhi for “inflammatory rhetoric, repeated provocations, and aggressive military posturing,” including the unilateral suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty, which Pakistan views as a breach of international law.
Pakistan, the statement added, hopes the international community will urge India “to demonstrate responsible behaviour and to refrain from all rhetoric and actions that may serve as a spoiler” to broader peace efforts. The remarks followed fresh comments from Indian officials marking the anniversary. The Indian army stated that a “response is assured” against terrorism, while some voices in New Delhi again pointed to Pakistan. A day earlier, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Information, Attaullah Tarar, had criticised India in a televised address for failing to produce “credible evidence” to support its allegations or to pursue an independent probe into what he called a possible “false flag operation.”
Tarar described the Pahalgam episode as reflecting a mindset of “hollowness, illogical thinking, false pride, arrogance, and greed,” saying New Delhi had yet to provide satisfactory answers after a full year. The sequence of events last spring unfolded rapidly. Two days after the attack, India announced the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty and took other punitive steps, including halting trade and closing its airspace to Pakistani flights. On May 6, 2025, Indian forces carried out deadly overnight airstrikes inside Pakistan. Pakistan retaliated by shooting down at least five Indian jets — later claiming a total of seven, including three Rafale fighters — along with drones and an S-400 air defense system. After strikes on each side’s air bases, American diplomacy helped halt the fighting. The two nuclear-armed neighbors have a long history of conflict over Kashmir, a region both claim in full but administer in parts. The 2025 crisis marked one of their most serious clashes in years, raising alarms in Washington and other capitals about the risk of escalation.
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