ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir expressed resolve that the time has come for Pakistan to show unwavering national resolve, similar to that demonstrated against Indian aggression, to eliminate foreign-sponsored terrorism and bring the fight to its logical and decisive conclusion.
On Wednesday morning, five persons, including three children and two soldiers, were killed when a school bus was targeted in a suicide blast in Khuzdar district of Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province.
“In a reprehensible and cowardly act of terrorism, a school bus carrying innocent children was targeted today in Khuzdar, Balochistan by state-sponsored proxies (Fitna Al Hindustan) of India, which the world has largely come to know as the epicentre of instability in the region,” Prime Minister Office said in a statement.
“Sequel to gross failure to intimidate Pakistan through overt military means, dastardly terrorist incidents are being orchestrated through their proxies at an intensified scale in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, deliberately targeting civilians in a futile attempt to destabilise Pakistan,” the PM Office statement added.
“Pakistan’s security forces and law enforcement agencies will relentlessly pursue all those involved in this barbaric act,” Prime Minister Sharif was quoted as saying in a statement issued by the PM Office.
Prime Minister Sharif said that the architects, abettors, and enablers of this crime will be held accountable and brought to justice, and the truth about “India’s cunning role, a real perpetrator of terrorism but feigns as a victim”, stands exposed before the world.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Minister of Defence, Minister of Interior, Minister of Information and Chief of Army Staff, Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, visited Quetta to meet the injured children and other victims of this horrific attack, the PM Office stated.
Chief Minister Balochistan and Commander Quetta Corps briefed the visitors about the dastardly incident which led to the martyrdom of three innocent children and two soldiers, along with 53 injured, including 39 innocent children, of whom 8 are critical.
The Prime Minister, Federal Minister and Chief of Army Staff expressed deep grief over the loss of innocent lives and injuries to the innocent school-going children.
The visitors, seeing the badly wounded and critically injured children, expressed that such a diabolical act of terrorism through these Indian sponsored proxies is a shameful and despicable act,” the PM Office statement read.
“These terrorist groups—masquerading under ethnic pretences—are not only being exploited by India as instruments of state policy, but also stand as a stain on the honour and values of the Baloch and Pashtun people, who have long rejected violence and extremism,” the PM Office statement added.
India’s reliance on such “morally indefensible tactics”, particularly the deliberate targeting of children, demands urgent attention from the international community, the PM Office statement maintained.
“The use of terrorism as a tool of foreign policy must be unequivocally condemned and confronted,” the PM Office statement highlighted.
The Prime Minister expressed that the entire nation stands resolute behind its Armed Forces and Law Enforcement Agencies in the collective will to eradicate the scourge of terrorism as well as safeguard the sovereignty and security of Pakistan.
Indian-sponsored terrorism
“In yet another cowardly and ghastly attack planned and orchestrated by [the] terrorist state of India and executed by its proxies in Balochistan, [an] innocent school-going children[’s] bus was targeted today in Khuzdar,” Pakistan military’s media wing said in a statement.
In the statement, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said that after having miserably failed on the battlefield, through these most heinous and cowardly acts, Indian proxies have been unleashed to spread terror and unrest in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Having failed in Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos and being hunted by military and law enforcement agencies, the ISPR said, these Indian terror proxies are being employed as a state tool by India to foment terrorism in Pakistan against soft targets such as innocent children and civilians.
“[The] use of terrorism as a state policy by the Indian political government is abhorrent and reflective of their low morality and disregard for basic human norms,” the ISPR noted.
Planners, abettors, and executors of this cowardly Indian-sponsored attack will be hunted down and brought to justice, and the heinous face of India will be exposed in front of the entire world, ISPR maintained.
“Pakistan Armed Forces, with the support of a brave Pakistani nation, stand united to uproot Indian-sponsored terrorism from Pakistan in all its manifestations,” the military’s media wing said.
