Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar has said the appearance of former Pakistan Army soldier Muhammad Asif before the media has exposed what he described as the Indian army’s false claims and a “fake encounter”.
Reacting to the DG ISPR’s press conference, Tarar said Muhammad Asif was alive and well, raising questions over the identity of the person killed by Indian forces in the reported encounter. He asked which innocent Kashmiri was actually killed if the person identified by Indian authorities as Asif was alive.
In a post uploaded on X platform on Friday, Tarar said India’s attempt to present the body of an innocent Kashmiri as that of Muhammad Asif was a serious embarrassment and demanded that the Indian Army explain the incident to the international community. He said India must answer whose life was taken in what Pakistan has described as a staged encounter.
The remarks came after DG ISPR Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry presented Muhammad Asif at a press conference on Thursday, directly challenging Indian claims that a Lashkar-e-Taiba militant identified as Muhammad Asif alias Hashim Moosa had been killed in an operation in Indian-occupied Kashmir. Asif said he was alive, living with his family and had retired from the Pakistan Army in 2023.
According to the DG ISPR’s account, Indian Army, police and CRPF units launched an operation in the Korag, Yousmarg area on September 29. Indian authorities subsequently claimed that a Lashkar-e-Taiba militant had been killed and identified him as Muhammad Asif, while Indian government bodies and media outlets repeated claims linking him to the Pakistan Army and SSG.
The presentation of the living Asif has since become the central point of Pakistan’s rebuttal to the Indian account. News agencies reported that Indian authorities had described the slain militant as a senior Lashkar-e-Taiba commander, while Pakistan’s military said the man had been wrongly identified. India had not immediately commented on the Pakistani military’s claim.
