Published 21:48 IST, August 14th 2019
MASSIVE: Pakistan PM Imran Khan finally concedes Balakot airstrike by India, fears bigger action
In an admission that has been a long time in coming, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has finally conceded that India carried out the Balakot airstrike on Pak soil
In an admission that has been a long time in coming, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has finally conceded that India carried out the Balakot airstrike on Pakistani soil. Further, he went on to make the confession in the context of expressing his fears that India has planned an even bigger operation, this time in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir and that the intelligence agencies had 'full knowledge' of this. While addressing the Legislative Assembly in Muzaffarabad on the occasion of 73rd Independence Day of Pakistan, Imran Khan dropped the garb that Pakistan had put up ever since India retaliated on its terror factory in response to the dastardly Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF Jawans were martyred, and went on to say that he and the Pak Army had organised multiple National Security Committee meetings once they got wind that India is planning another such strike.
"We have information and we have had two National Security Committee (NSC) meetings. The Pakistan Army has full knowledge that India has made a plan to take action in PoK. Just like how after Pulwama, they took the action in Balakot, according to the information we have, they have made more sinister plans now," Khan said in his address.
BJP's social media head Amit Malviya took to Twitter and shared a video of Imran Khan's statement. The BJP leader captioned the tweet saying "Ye khaunff achcha hai (This fear is good)". Watch here:
Balakot airstrike
On February 26, a squadron of the IAF had crossed over to Pakistan and destroyed the largest JeM terrorist training camp in Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan to avenge the Pulwama terror attack which had been perpetrated by the Pakistan-based terror group and for which it took responsibility. In the aftermath, Pakistan had first denied that any such airstrike had taken place, and then claimed that the IAF's bombs had missed their mark and hit a nearby forest, destroying trees and nothing more. However, visuals accessed by Republic TV later called out Pakistan's bluff, showing that the SPICE bombs used had decimated the terror complex, with sources pegging that there had been up to 300 terrorists at the facility at the time.
Imran Khan echoes Rahul Gandhi
In the same speech, Pakistan PM Imran Khan once again tried to interfere in the internal matters of India, this time by echoing the words of former Congress president Rahul Gandhi. Speaking in Muzaffarabad on the occasion of his country's Independence day, Imran Khan appeared to focus less on Pakistan and more on India. He targeted the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) and said it espoused 'Nazi ideology', keeping up his government's sole agenda of diverting attention away from all his country's problems to the goings-on in Kashmir.
Updated 23:33 IST, August 14th 2019