October 3, 2023
Staff report
LAHORE
Balochistan Home Minister Captain (Retd.) Zubair Jamali on Monday admitted that the caretaker federal government has yet to share evidence of the involvement of India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) in the Mastung bomb blast, and that the Government of Balochistan has no such evidence in its possession currently.
This came to light during an interview with journalist Munizae Jahangir on Aaj News’ Spotlight.
During a media presser on September 30, one day after two separate bomb attacks took place in Balochistan’s Mastung and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Hangu, caretaker Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti declared that RAW was behind the incident in Mastung.
“Whoever is [carrying such attacks], whatever name you give them, they are all the same to us. They are all being handled from one place: RAW is behind this,” he stated the Government reached this conclusion based on investigations into all major incidents before this latest attack which “unearthed” RAW’s involvement as well as the involvement of all other powers working to destabilize Pakistan.
Balochistan Home Minister Jamali, who was with Interior Minister Bugti at the presser when he made the claim, admitted that the Provincial Government has no evidence of RAW’s hand in the attack.
“I was standing next to him during that press conference… I do not have any evidence as such. So, if it exists, then it is with the Federal Government and they will share it with us. But, so far, they have yet to share it with us,” he explained.
Jamali also stated that as the Interior Minister made the claim, the Federal Government was likely in possession of evidence that RAW was behind the attack which it has yet to share with the Provincial Government.
“As far as the evidence is concerned, Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti said that RAW is involved. If he says so, then [the Federal Government] definitely has the evidence.”
Security analyst and Director of the Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), Muhammad Amir Rana, expressed his view that accusing foreign agencies of carrying out terror attacks in Pakistan without presenting evidence beforehand is nothing more than political sloganeering.
“This is merely political sloganeering… Blaming [the attack] on RAW and India, without any prior thought as to the consequences of doing so, sends a message to the common man that India is so powerful that it can orchestrate terrorist attacks in Pakistan whenever it wants and our security institutions can only watch helplessly…”
He also held that tying terror incidents to RAW is irresponsible, as it creates a narrative among Pakistan’s citizens as well as its security forces that the state is powerless before India.
“Our efforts to bring the Afghan Taliban into power are apparent the world over. The reason why we made this effort was to undermine India and RAW’s influence [in the region]. Now, we are posing the narrative that the Taliban are also RAW agents. [The Government] should be very careful when conceiving narratives, and how they can affect the understanding of citizens and law enforcing agencies.”
As of the publication of this report, no organization has accepted responsibility for the Mastung bomb blast, which has claimed 60 lives so far.
