'India exploited circumstances in 1971 to dismember Pak'

After attacking Rahul Gandhi's statement on Sunday, Pakistan on Monday said 'circumstances' existed in 1971, which were exploited by India to dismember the country.

"I am not going to get into that debate but may be there were circumstances. But India took advantage of those circumstances to dismember Pakistan and what the scion of Nehru family has done is that he has accepted the real Indian motives for the intervention," Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam told media persons in Islamabad.

At her daily briefing, she was asked whether the Indian intervention was the only reason for dismemberment of Pakistan and creation of Bangladesh.

She faced a barrage of questions on Rahul's remarks during electioneering in Uttar Pradesh that one of his family's achievements was 'breaking' Pakistan.      

Aslam had on Sunday said that the young Congress leader's remarks proved allegations that 'India interfered in Pakistan's affairs and tried to destabilise it.'

On Monday, she said: "I do not think anyone would have believed what India claimed the reasons were for its intervention. This is where we are clear. This is just one person of that (Nehru) family has now come out and made a blatant admission."

"There is no reason why we should give any importance to statement by such people. Because today's Pakistan is very different. Today's Pakistan is capable of defending itself in every circumstance and today no one should entertain such ideas because that would be very risky," Aslam said.

At one point during the briefing, Aslam urged media persons to be civil. "My request to everyone would be that we should be civil. We can have differences and issues with utterances made by people but we should be civil."

She said that there was nothing new in Rahul's remarks.

"I do not find it surprising. There is nothing new in this. We knew all along, pretensions apart, what happened in 1971. It was as there have been efforts to destabilise Pakistan. This is clear admission for the first time from the children of the family that was ruling India at that time," she said.