Bisham attack: MoD scorns Pakistan army’s claim

KABUL (Pajhwok): The Ministry of Defence has rejected the Pakistan army’s claim that last month’s attack on Chinese engineers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province was planned in Afghanistan.

Five Chinese engineers and their Pakistani driver had been killed in a suicide bombing in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Bisham sub-district on March 26.

Pakistan Army spokesman Ahmad Sharif told a news conference in Islamabad on Tuesday the suicide attack on Chinese engineers was planned in Afghanistan and the bomber was an Afghan citizen.

But Ministry of Defence spokesman Enayatullah Khawarazmi scorned the allegation as baseless and far from true.

The MoD spokesman wrote on his X handle: “The killing of Chinese citizens in a Khyber Pakhtunkhwa area, which is under tight security of the army, shows the weakness of Pakistani agencies or their abetment of the attackers. In both cases, responsibility rests with the Pakistan government.”

He said: “Blaming Afghanistan for such incidents is an unsuccessful attempt to divert attention from the truth, and we strongly reject it.”

Khawarazmi added the caretaker government had shared its position with China, which understood the fact that Afghans were not involved in such incidents.

He claimed: “We have strong evidence of Daesh militants infiltrating into Afghanistan from Pakistan and Pakistan’s territory being used against us.”

The caretaker government said security and stability in Pakistan was in the interest of Afghanistan and the region at large. The IEA insists it believes in brotherhood and good ties between the people of the two countries.

kk/mud