ISLAMABAD: Pakistan accused India on Sunday of running a propaganda campaign to malign its state institutions, a day after Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar attributed what he described as Pakistan’s “ideological hostility” toward New Delhi to the country’s powerful army.

Addressing a public forum in New Delhi, Jaishankar said most of India’s problems with Pakistan stemmed from its military establishment, which he argued had cultivated and sustained an entrenched animosity toward India.

His remarks came months after a brief but intense military confrontation between the nuclear-armed neighbors, during which both sides exchanged artillery and missile fire and deployed drones and fighter jets.

Responding to the comments, Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesperson Tahir Andrabi called them “highly inflammatory, baseless and irresponsible.”

“Pakistan is a responsible state and its all institutions, including armed forces, are a pillar of national security, dedicated to safeguarding the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country,” Andrabi said in a statement. “The May 2025 conflict vividly demonstrated Pakistan armed forces’ professionalism as well as their resolve to defend the motherland and the people of Pakistan against any Indian aggression in a befitting, effective yet responsible manner.”

“The attempts by Indian leadership to defame Pakistan’s state institutions and its leadership are a part of a propaganda campaign designed to distract attention from India’s destabilising actions in the region and beyond as well as state-sponsored terrorism in Pakistan,” he said, adding that such “incendiary rhetoric” showed the extent of India’s disregard for regional peace and stability.

Andrabi said that rather than making “misleading remarks about the armed forces of Pakistan,” India should confront the “fascist and revisionist Hindutva ideology that has unleashed a reign of mob justice, lynchings, arbitrary detentions and demolition of properties and places of worship.”

He warned that the Indian state and its leadership had become hostage to “this terror in the name of religion.”

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since independence in 1947. They have also engaged in countless border skirmishes and major military standoffs, including the 1999 Kargil conflict.

The four-day conflict in May 2025 ended with a US-brokered ceasefire, after Washington said both sides had expressed willingness to pursue dialogue.

Pakistan said it was ready to discuss all outstanding issues, but India declined talks.

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