Didn’t Seek Bilateral Meet with India: Pak Sources after EAM Jibe at ‘Neighbour’ over Poonch Attack | Exclusive

While reports claim that amid LoC tension, India has refused a bilateral meeting with Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto, who will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Goa on May 4-5, sources in Pakistan’s Foreign Office claimed they “didn’t propose such a meeting".

Pakistan will also participate in the SCO Defence Ministers’ virtual meeting to be hosted by India on April 27-28.

Five soldiers were killed and one was injured after terrorists attacked the lone Army truck, which was carrying eatables for iftar to a village, in the dense forest area of Bhata Dhurian in Poonch district last Thursday. The ambush in Bhata Dhurian, a preferred infiltration route for terrorists from across the Line of Control, is being seen as an indication of the revival of terrorism in the twin border districts of Poonch and Rajouri, where militancy was almost wiped out over a decade ago.

After Pakistan confirmed his arrival, Bhutto had reportedly said on a programme on Dunya News: “We are committed to the SCO charter and this visit should not be seen as a bilateral one but in the context of the SCO."

Meanwhile, after the Poonch attack, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Monday said, “It is very difficult to engage with a neighbour who practices cross-border terrorism against India."

THE POONCH ATTACK

The officials said security forces and intelligence agencies investigating the latest attack were startled to find a “striking resemblance" between the ambush and the attack on a police vehicle in Gambhir Mughlan village of Rajouri on January 1, 2001, in which 14 personnel of the special operations group (SOG) and two health workers were killed.

“The site of the Bhata Dhurian ambush is only 23 km from the 2001 Gambhir Mughlan ambush location. Both the vehicles were set ablaze by terrorists using explosives or chemicals after firing indiscriminately from a very close range on the on-board personnel. Thereafter, they decamped with service rifles of the victims," a security official told PTI.

He said the latest attack is a cause for concern among the security setup as the entire area was considered almost terrorism free, but the attackers struck the vehicle in broad daylight on the Jammu-Rajouri-Poonch national highway and melted away in the dense forest.

The Poonch ambush was the latest in a series of attacks in different areas of Jammu province, including the killing of innocent civilians at Dhangri village of Rajouri and the twin bomb attacks in Jammu city.

THE IMPACT

In this scenario, the Indian government might not give its nod to a formal engagement between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan. The SCO meet in Goa may be low-key as both the countries’ ministers will not hold any bilateral meetings on the sidelines.

New Delhi has been maintaining that while it has been ready to hold discussions with Islamabad to resolve outstanding issues bilaterally within the framework of the 1972 Sh

imla Agreement and the 1999 Lahore Declaration, any dialogue would make sense and yield progress only when Pakistan would stop the export of terror to India.

If Jaishankar and Bhutto were to hold a bilateral meeting in Goa, it would have been the first ministerial engagement between the two nations after a long hiatus of eight years.

Meanwhile, Indian PM Modi will host the SCO summit in New Delhi in July. India has already sent an invitation to Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to attend the conclave.

With PTI Inputs

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