India shouldn’t overreact over Pathankot terror attack: Musharraf

ISLAMABAD, January 13: Former president general (Retd) Pervez Musharraf has said that India should not ‘overreact’ over Pathankot terror attack.
Speaking to a private TV channel, former president Pervez Musharraf said that both India and Pakistan were victims of extremists and said that the New Delhi government should not put pressure on Islamabad over terrorism. The former General said Pakistan was also suffering from what had happened in Pathankot.
“Terrorism is prevalent in both India and Pakistan,” said Musharraf. “We are also victims of the same so we should not overreact to what happened in Pathankot. Yes, of course we want to control such incidents, but one should not get hyper over such incidents.”
Musharraf accused India of turning to Pakistan every time a terrorist attack happened, while he claimed that India too host extremists in parts of the country. He said that there had been a rise in “disgruntlement” among India’s Muslim community since Narendra Modi came to power in 2014.
He also said that ties between India and Pakistan had been “moving forward” until the prime minister came into office, accusing Modi of not being “sincere” in his approach to talks with Pakistan.
He accused Modi’s recent visit to Pakistan as a display of “showmanship” and said that relations between the two countries wouldn’t move forward as long as Modi was Continued on page 7
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“hell-bent on [his] own stand”.
“India’s first reaction to every terrorist attack is Pakistan, but India is not free of terrorism or extremism themselves,” said Musharraf. “India simply can’t create pressure on Pakistan when it comes to terrorism. We may be a small country but we have honour of our own. India always treats terrorism as a one-sided issue and that infuriates me. They can’t just bulldoze us when something happens there.” -Sabah