Pakistan's credibility depleting faster than its Forex reserves: EAM Jaishankar on terror

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar Friday expressed outrage over the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district in which five jawans were martyred while speaking at a press conference following the SCO Foreign Ministers' meet in Goa. Asked a question about Pakistan being behind the terror attack, Jaishankar said, "I don't want to jump the gun on what happened today but we are all feeling equally outraged. On this matter, the terrorism matter, I would say that Pakistan's credibility is depleting faster than even its Forex reserves." Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto was among the attendees at the conference. 

On the possibility of bilateral talks with Pakistan, Jaishankar said Bilawal Bhutto had come to India as a foreign minister of an SCO member state. "That is part of multilateral diplomacy. Don’t see it as anything more than that. I think that nothing from what he said or what I heard he said deserves for this to be treated more than that…As a promoter, justifier and I am sorry to say, spokesperson of a terrorism industry which is the mainstay of Pakistan, his positions were called out and they were countered, including at the SCO meeting." 

"Victims of terrorism do not sit together with perpetrators of terrorism to discuss terrorism. Victims of terrorism defend themselves, counter acts of terrorism, they call it out, they legitimise it and that is exactly what is happening. To come here and preach these hypocritical words as though we are on the same boat,” EAM Jaishankar said further.   

What happened in Rajouri?

Five Army personnel lost their lives due to an explosion triggered by terrorists in the Kandi area of Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri on Friday. The operation was initiated following inputs about the presence of a group of terrorists involved in an ambush on an Army truck in Bhata Dhurian of Poonch district last month, in which five security personnel were killed. On specific information about the presence of terrorists in the Kandi Forest in the Rajouri Sector, a joint operation was launched on May 3. Around 7.30 am on Friday, a search team established contact with a group of terrorists well entrenched in a cave.

As per officials, additional troops of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Army were inducted into the area to put it in tight cordon so that terrorists do not escape the spot. The terrorists triggered an explosive device in retaliation. The slain soldiers were Lance Naik Ruchin Singh Rawat from Gairsain in Uttarakhand, Paratrooper Siddhant Chettri from Darjeeling in West Bengal, Naik Arvind Kumar from Kangra district in Himachal Pradesh, Havildar Neelam Singh from Jammu and Paratrooper Pramod Negi from Sirmaur in Himachal Pradesh.

(With inputs from agencies)