In a press conference on Monday, Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Asif Ghafoor blamed India and Afghanistan for the ongoing Pashtun agitation. “Tell us how much money did you get from the NDS [Afghan intel agency] to run your campaign? How much money did RAW give you for the first sit-in in Islamabad?" he asked, reported Express Tribune. The Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) has been agitating for human rights in the country. He alleged that India had been "lying repeatedly" and Pakistan has not responded to those lies.
"Since the last two months India has been continuing to lie. As a responsible country we have not responded to their lies," he said. "The truth is that there was an incident in Pulwama. Attacks on the police in Pulwama have happened before. There was no damage at our end in Balakot. We took local and foreign media there to show them [the truth]. We will facilitate Indian media if they choose to come to Balakot to see the truth," Ghafoor was quoted as saying by Geo News.
Tensions flared up between India and Pakistan after a suicide bomber of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Muhammed (JeM) killed 40 CRPF personnel in Kashmir's Pulwama district on February 14.
He said Pakistan had witnessed a surge in religious seminaries from 247 madrassas in 1947 to 2,861 in 1980.
"And now there are over 30,000 madrassas. Out of these, only 100 are involved in propagating terrorism," he said, adding that several steps were afoot to control and bring the seminaries into the mainstream.
"All madrassas will be brought under the Ministry of Education so that contemporary subjects can be taught. We will formulate a syllabus which will not have hate speech and students will be taught respect for different sects," he said.
-Inputs from PTI
