LONDON: Former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf has accused India of supplying anti-aircraft missiles, rocket launchers and mortars to rebels in country's south-western province of Balochistan.
Cornered during a BBC TV interview on Wednesday over alleged Pakistani complicity in Osama bin Laden hiding at Abbottabad, Musharraf brazenly charged India with fomenting trouble in Balochistan to wriggle out of a difficult position.
He astonishingly said: "Do you know we caught five truckloads of weapons very recently, just about two months back. Five truckloads of anti-aircraft missiles, rocket launchers, mortars. Now, who brought these five trucks? Who gave these? Americans or the Afghanistan government? No sir. India gave them. And we know it."
Asked to substantiate his charge, Musharraf's spokesman Fawad Chowdhury said the former general had made the charges in the context of the arrest of Akbar Bugti, a Baloch rebel leader. "The chap was caught with truckloads of weapons and as you know Pakistan suspects India assists Baloch trouble." Neither he nor Musharraf provided any proof to back their claim.
The US administration recently dismissed Pakistani claims of Indian involvement in Baloch insurgency. The
Indian high commission in London rubbished Musharraf's allegations, saying they were "totally baseless".
During the interview, Musharraf complained that the US and the West were pro-India. "Our sensitivities are our nuclear capabilities, our sensitivity is India. If there is a partisan attitude in favour of India against Pakistan, it doesn't go well with people of Pakistan and also the government," he argued.
The BBC interviewer suggested that Pakistan's behaviour in the war against terror amounted to "almost blackmail". Musharraf denied this. But he conceded "it is very difficult to prove non-complicity," when asked about bin Laden being found in Abbottabad.
Asked if he knew about Osama bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad during his period in power, Musharraf replied: "I didn't know it". He also refuted any ISI complicity. "We can call it negligence, we can call it ineptitude, whatever, failure," he insisted.
An American commentator, David Frum, on the same programme summed up the US's circumstances in the war against terror in the Af-Pak region saying: "Pakistan is our most important ally in that war, but Pakistan is also the most important ally of our enemy in that war."
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