1 week Ago By Hassan Naqvi
In an age where accusation often supersedes inquiry, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi’s press conference on Saturday served as a rare assertion of reasoned defiance. Confronting the barrage of allegations from New Delhi after the tragic Pahalgam attack, Naqvi dismantled the narrative architecture that India has long used to malign Pakistan, offering instead a call for transparency, accountability, and an unflinching defence of sovereignty. The brutal killing of 26 tourists, including a Nepali national, in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) had, once again, become the catalyst for a familiar Indian reflex: blame Pakistan swiftly and without evidence.
Within hours, India moved to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty, shut down the Wagah-Attari border, expel diplomats, and cancel visas — actions designed not merely to punish but to frame a story. Yet, Pakistan, resisting the lure of reactionary rhetoric, answered with calibrated strength. Naqvi’s address was not merely a rebuttal; it was a strategic repositioning.
By calling for a neutral and transparent investigation, Naqvi inverted the traditional defensive posture long associated with Islamabad in such crises. His proposal was disarming in its simplicity: if India truly seeks justice, let impartial investigators determine the facts. It was a deft manoeuvre that shifted the burden of proof back onto New Delhi, exposing the fragility of accusations unsupported by evidence.
The world was offered a choice: believe the noise, or demand the truth. What made Naqvi’s intervention particularly potent was his decision to frame the Pahalgam episode within a broader, more troubling pattern of Indian behaviour. No longer content with regional destabilisation, India has, according to emerging evidence, exported its rogue tactics to Western democracies.
Recent allegations linking Indian agents to assassination plots in Canada and the United States suggest that India’s weaponisation of terrorism is neither accidental nor isolated. Naqvi’s linking of this global pattern to Pakistan’s domestic challenges was a masterstroke, illustrating that India’s hand can be seen wherever political opposition is deemed inconvenient. For Pakistan, the revelation that seven improvised explosive devices (IEDs) planted by Indian-sponsored actors were foiled within three days is a sobering reminder of the scale of the threat.
It is not merely a security issue; it is an economic and diplomatic one. Destabilising Pakistan serves India's larger ambition: to stymie its neighbour’s economic resurgence and frame it as a pariah state. In this, terrorism becomes less a weapon of last resort and more a tool of statecraft.
The presser also exposed a network long known to Pakistani intelligence: the unholy alliance between the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). Evidence of BLA leaders meeting Indian handlers in third countries underscores the institutional nature of this collaboration. It is not a rogue element within India’s deep state; it is policy.
If pushed aggressively on the diplomatic stage, these revelations could lay bare India’s double game: championing counterterrorism at global forums while nurturing terror proxies in private. Timing, as always in South Asian geopolitics, is instructive. The Pahalgam attack coincides with India’s domestic electoral season and crucial international engagements.
Manufactured external threats serve as potent rallying cries, deflecting from internal dissent and economic malaise. By staging or exploiting incidents of violence, India nurtures a siege mentality at home while demanding international indulgence abroad. It is an old script, but one that still finds eager audiences.
Throughout his address, Naqvi made it clear that while Pakistan seeks peace, it is not prepared to barter dignity for diplomacy. His reaffirmation of Pakistan’s unwavering commitment to the Kashmiri cause was more than rhetorical. It was a reminder that the struggle in IIOJK is not about religious extremism or cross-border terrorism, as India often claims, but about the inalienable right to self-determination.
To conflate indigenous resistance with imported militancy is not only intellectually dishonest; it is morally bankrupt. Naqvi’s performance signals a subtle but significant shift in Pakistan’s external posture. No longer content to merely deny, Islamabad is beginning to demand.
No longer waiting to be judged, it is starting to judge. In refusing to accept the burden of false guilt, Pakistan is asserting its right to dignity—a right no less vital than the right to sovereignty. The world would do well to listen.
In the past, Pakistan’s calibrated restraint was often mistaken for culpability. Mohsin Naqvi’s message was clear: patience must never be confused with weakness, and Pakistan’s quest for peace must never be mistaken for an absence of resolve. In an increasingly volatile region, that message may prove to be the most stabilising force of all.
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