The newspaper's report claims India admitted to not carrying out the surgical strike.
The Ministry of External Affairs on Friday released a statement terming Pakistani newspaper News International's report on the surgical strikes as 'concocted and baseless'.
In a report titled, 'Indian FS admits surgical strike was a bluff' the newspaper alleged that India's Foreign Secretary had admitted that no surgical strikes had been undertaken across the Line of Control by the Indian Army. The report claims that the admission by India was made during a recent meeting with German ambassador in New Delhi.
On Friday morning, MEA Spokesperson Vikas Swarup released a statement, saying, "News International Pakistan's story titled "Indian FS admits surgical strikes was a bluff" is completely concocted & baseless. German Ambassador Dr Martin Ney was in group of foreign envoys briefed by Foreign Secy on Sep 29 on the surgical strikes. They have had no further conversation since on this subject."
News International reports that the conversation came to be when Minister Political Ms Rukhsana Afzal from the Embassy of Pakistan, Berlin, visited the Foreign Office to meet with Senior Desk Officer of AfPak Division, Ms Simone Stemmler, and Ms Karen Goebels and Mr Jens Wagner from the German Foreign Ministry.
The report details the conversation that took place —
"When Ms Rukhsana raised the issue of Uri’s false flag and the so-called ‘surgical strike’, Ms Simmone confided with the Pakistani diplomat that during a formal meeting on the issue of ongoing India-Pakistan stand-off between German Ambassador to India Dr Martin Ney and Indian FS Subramaniam Jaishankar in New Delhi, "the Indian Foreign Secretary has categorically denied and said that there was no 'surgical strike' undertaken by Indian army inside Azad Kashmir, Pakistan."
The report also quotes an official source as saying, “With the so-called mantra of surgical strike, the BJP government wanted to achieve many objectives such as to prove to the world that Pakistan is a terror sponsoring state and India has the military muscle to put it under restrain, Kashmir's freedom movement is nothing more than Pakistan's sponsored terrorism, to satisfy its populations' demand of avenging Uri attack and to create an unrivaled political space ahead of UP's state elections.”
In a well-calibrated operation, which started on the intervening night of September 28 and 29, the Indian army moved across the LoC and smashed terror launch pads. This was in response to the September 18 attack on the army base in Uri that killed 19 Indian soldiers.
Pakistan has denied any part in the attack on the Uri army base and also continues to deny that any surgical strikes took place, saying there was only cross-border firing that is relatively common along the frontier.
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