ISLAMABAD (Reuters) -The Indian home minister’s account of forces killing who he said were three Pakistanis involved in the April attack on Hindu tourists in the Jammu and Kashmir federal territory was “replete with fabrications”, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday.
Indian Home Minister Amit Shah told parliament on Tuesday that the three militants killed in a gun battle in a Kashmir forest this week were the perpetrators of the April 22 attack and that New Delhi had found evidence to back it.
Pakistan has denied involvement in the attack in which 26 men were shot dead – the worst assault on civilians in India since the 2008 Mumbai attacks – and sought an independent investigation.
“The account given by the Indian home minister is replete with fabrications, leading to serious questions about its credibility,” Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
The attackers, who India said were Pakistani nationals backed by Islamabad, had opened fire in a valley popular with tourists in Kashmir’s scenic, mountainous region of Pahalgam, before fleeing into the surrounding pine forests.
It led New Delhi to target what it called “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir, leading to four days of intense fighting in May between the nuclear-armed neighbours before they agreed to a ceasefire.
The Himalayan region of Kashmir is at the heart of the hostility between India and Pakistan, who have fought two of their three wars over the region, which they both claim in full but rule in part.
New Delhi accuses Islamabad of helping Islamist separatists battling security forces in its part of Kashmir, but Pakistan says it only provides diplomatic and moral support to Kashmiris seeking self determination.
(Reporting by Asif Shahzad, Writing by Sudipto Ganguly; editing by YP Rajesh)
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