Pakistani PM says 'no doubt' India was behind a deadly attack

Pakistani PM says 'no doubt' India was behind a deadly attack

Imran Khan offered no evidence for his allegation but said there had been intelligence reports warning of attacks.

Imran Khan offered no evidence for his allegation but said there had been intelligence reports warning of attacks.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has told Parliament he had little question that India was behind a deadly attack on the stock market building within the southern city of Karachi.

Four gunmen armed with grenades attacked the Pakistan stock market on Monday, killing two guards and a policeman before security forces killed them.

"There is not any doubt that India is behind the attack," Khan said in his address to Parliament on Tuesday - a charge that India had denied each day earlier.

Khan offered no evidence for his allegation but said there had been intelligence reports warning of attacks in Pakistan and he had informed his cabinet about the threat.

He said the attackers were heavily armed and wanted to require hostages to duplicate the 2008 Mumbai attacks during which quite 160 people were killed.

Khan termed their failure to try to so and therefore the rapid response by security forces, as a "big victory".
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), an armed separatist group from the southwestern province of Balochistan, claimed responsibility for the attack during a message on Twitter.

The group has been officially banned in Pakistan since 2006 and was classified by us as a worldwide terrorist organization last July.

Khan said Pakistan's intelligence agencies had successfully pre-empted a minimum of four major attacks within the country, two of which targeted Islamabad - but that it had been impossible to prevent all such attacks.

Separatists are fighting for years in Balochistan, complaining its mineral wealth is unfairly exploited by Pakistan's richer, more powerful provinces.

Pakistan has regularly blamed India for supporting Baloch separatists - a charge Delhi has repeatedly continuously denied.

The BLA also took responsibility for an attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi in 2018. Several projects linked to China's Belt and Road initiative are in Balochistan.