Pakistan’s foreign secretary Muhammad Syrus Sajjad Qazi on Thursday claimed Islamabad had "credible evidence’’ of links between Indian agents and the assassination of two Pakistani nationals alleged to be associated with banned terror groups, Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), in Sialkot and Rawalakot; making an accusation that is akin to the ones made by the US and Canada last year.

Later in the evening, the external affairs ministry rejected the charge and said Pakistan was reaping what it had sown. Billing the accusation as Pakistan’s latest attempt at peddling false and malicious anti-India propaganda, the Ministry’s official spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said: ``As the world knows, Pakistan has long been the epicentre of terrorism, organised crime, and illegal transnational activities.

India and many other countries have publicly warned Pakistan cautioning that it would be consumed by its own culture of terror and violence. Pakistan will reap what it sows. To blame others for its own misdeeds can neither be a justification nor a solution.”

Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, Qazi presented what he described as ``details of a sophisticated and sinister Indian campaign of extra-territorial and extra-judicial killings inside Pakistan’’. According to him, these are "killings for hire’’ cases involving sophisticated international set-up spread over multiple jurisdictions.

``Indian agents used technology and safe havens on foreign soil to commit assassinations in Pakistan. They recruited, financed and supported criminals, terrorists and unsuspecting civilians to play defined roles in these assassinations. Indian media and social media accounts immediately claimed and glorified these killings as successful retribution against enemies of India and projected their capacity to carry out these illegal acts,’’ the foreign secretary said.

At today’s press conference, Qazi shared details of two cases and said that a few more similar cases are under investigation. One of the two cases related to Shahid Latif, said to be a close aide of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar, who was killed in Sialkot on October 11, 2023. The second case pertains to Muhammad Riaz, an LeT agent, who was gunned down in Rawalakot on September 8, 2023.

According to the foreign secretary, these cases fit the pattern of similar cases which have come to light in other countries including Canada and the U.S.; referring to the accusation made by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of an Indian hand in the killing of Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia and the U.S. Justice Department case of a plot to murder Sikhs of Justice leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannu in which an Indian government agent is alleged to have hired a person in New York to carry out the hitjob.