Clarion India

NEW DELHI — Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan while speaking in the National Assembly on Tuesday said that Pakistan has “no doubt” that India was behind yesterday’s attempted attack on the Pakistan Stock Exchange in Karachi, reports The Dawn.

“What happened in Mumbai, they wanted to do the same [in Karachi]; they wanted to spread uncertainty. We have no doubt this was done by India,” Imran Khan said, referring to the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which more than 160 people were killed.

Pakistan PM also praised a police sub-inspector and three security guards who lost their lives while thwarting the attack on the PSX as the “heroes of Pakistan”.

“They gave sacrifices and thwarted a major incident, which was planned by India to destabilise us,” he said, adding that the attackers had a lot of ammunition and they wanted to take hostages.

“My cabinet and its ministers know that all our agencies were on high alert. Our agencies preempted at least four major attempts of terrorism and two of them were around Islamabad.

“We were fully prepared … this was a huge win for us,” he said, paying tribute to the security agencies.

The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) had come under attack on Monday morning when four heavily armed assailants lobbed grenades at its entrance and opened fire on security guards and officials before being killed in an exchange of fire that also claimed the lives of four security personnel.

The outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility through social media, but such an attack reflecting “frustration” of Indian agency RAW over peace in Pakistan’s financial hub was not possible without the help of any foreign hostile agency, the chief of paramilitary Rangers reportedly told a press conference after the attack.