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Hijacking drama India hell-bent to defame Pakistan, says Akbar

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's High Commissioner in London Prof. Akbar Ahmed has said that India is concocting stories to get Pakistan labelled as "terrorist state".

In an interview with BBC, he said Pakistan's interior minister has made a very clear statement that security is on high alert in Pakistan and if the hijackers do cross into Pakistan they will be picked up and tried because Pakistan throughout has been taking a very clear position.

In fact, Pakistan has emphasised that there is no evidence to support the claim that Pakistan is involved in the hijacking he said and added that there are so many unanswered questions that it leads just to the conclusion that this is a bit of a drama, it is concocted to do precisely what the Indian Prime Minister wants to do, which is to label Pakistan "terrorist state".

Akbar said Gen. Musharraf has put it very well in an interview with CNN on Tuesday in which he has actually said that let us talk, let India and Pakistan sit down and talk about the core issue which is Kashmir.

Akbar said the point is that even now as we speak people are being killed there, there are human rights violations, over 70,000 civilians have been killed in Kashmir in the last few years. Now to simply implicate Pakistan for anything that happens in Kashmir, which is a legitimate movement of the people of Kashmir, is absolutely wrong and what it does is that it simply creates an atmosphere in the sub-continent which is very dangerous. And when the Indian prime minister makes statements you can imagine how dangerous that could be, both countries are nuclear and it is in the interest of the world, particularly in the West, to make sure that these countries sit down and resolve the issue of Kashmir so that they can begin some kind of serious dialogue.

He said Pakistan is being accused. There are no facts to support the claims of the Indians. We yet do not know the identity of the hijackers. The statement about the nationality of the hijackers keep changing. We know that no plans were made by the Indians in Kandahar to arret the hijackers. There are so many question marks. And then to blame Pakistan and expect from Pakistan to do something to appease the Indians, makes no sense. APP