In what appears to be a slap on the face of Pakistan, former CIA director David Petraeus rejected the theory of ‘India-sponsored terrorism’. The former commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was responding to a question directed at soon-to-be foreign secretary S Jaishankar at the Raisina Dialogue at New Delhi.

“As director of the CIA, and commander of ISAF in Afghanistan, I never once heard the term ‘Indian state-sponsored terrorism’,” Petraeus, a retired US Army General, said.

Jaishankar and Petraeus were talking on how India can offer a counterbalance to China in the Indo-Pacific region while providing a secure and free navigational route.

Petraeus’ response was greeted by the audiences with applause.

His comment comes at a time when Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi defended the release of Jamat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed saying that there is “no case against him”.

Saeed is the mastermind of the 26 November 2008 Mumbai terror attacks which claimed the lives of 166 people.

The US-designated terrorist has been living freely in Pakistan after his release from a house arrest in November 2014.

Using the Kulbhushan Jadhav case, Pakistan has been falsely accusing India of sponsoring terrorism in Balochistan. Islamabad claims that Jadhav was sent by India’s elite spy agency Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) for fomenting terrorism in the restive south-western part of Pakistan.

But New Delhi has provided facts which prove that Jadhav is a businessman who was abducted from Iran by Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and is being presented as a spy to demean India.

A military court in Pakistan had sentenced Jadhav to death but India successfully obtained a stay against the ruling at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague.

India is not the only country which accuses Pakistan of state-sponsored terrorism. Afghanistan, too, has been accusing Pakistan of supporting and sheltering Taliban terrorists. Reacting to Pakistani PM’s defence of Saeed, former Afghan president Hamid Karzai said that there is enough evidence to prove that the JuD chief is behind the 26/11 attacks.

US President Donald Trump, too, accused Pakistan of “lies and deceit” in his New Year’s Day tweet. He wrote: “The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!”

A few days later the US decided to freeze around $2 billion given in military aid to Pakistan.