'Humne Hindustan ko ghus ke maara': Pakistan minister admits role in Pulwama terrorist attack

A Pakistani minister on Thursday admitted that Prime Minister Imran Khan-led Pakistan government played a role in the Pulwama attack in Jammu and Kashmir in 2019 that killed 40 CRPF personnel. "Humne Hindustan ko ghus ke maara (We hit India in their home). Our success in Pulwama, is a success of this nation under the leadership of Imran Khan. You and us are all part of that success," Science & Technology Minister Fawad Chaudhry, a close aide of Prime Minister Imran Khan, said in the National Assembly during a debate.

Fawad Chaudhry's statement in the National Assembly was in reaction to Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Sardar Ayaz Sadiq's statement that Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi's legs were shaking in a top leaders' meeting wherein he pleaded others to release IAF pilot Abhinandan Varthaman, who was captured by the Pakistani Army on February 27, 2019 after his MiG-21 Bison jet was shot down in a dogfight with Pakistani jets.

"Legs were shaking and forehead perspiring, and the foreign minister (Qureshi) told us, 'For God's sake, let him (Varthaman) go back now because India is attacking Pakistan at 9 PM in the night", Sadiq said, recalling the high-level meeting which was also attended by Army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, and added that "India was not planning to attack. They just wanted to kneel before India and send back Abhinandan."

In the early hours of February 26, 2019, the IAF jets bombed the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terror camps in Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan and avenged the Pulwama terrorist attack that claimed the lives of 40 CRPF personnel.

Chaudhry, who was the information and broadcasting minister at the time of the Pulwama attack, criticised Sadiq's remarks and termed them as "inappropriate".

The international community led by the US has pressed Pakistan to deny safe haven to terror groups operating from its soil and bring the perpetrators of the Pulwama attack to justice.

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