A suicide bomber had attempted to assassinate General Pervez Musharraf in December 2003 at Jhanda Chichi. Recalling the incident, Musharraf said that it was fortunate that he wasn’t killed in the attempt

In an interview given to Pakistan-based journalist Nadeem Malik, former Pakistan president General Pervez Musharraf welcomed the action being taken against Jaish-e-Mohammad and said it was the same organisation that had carried out an assassination attempt on him.

Former Pakistan president General Pervez Musharraf has in an interview accepted that the Masood Azhar-led Jaish-e-Mohammad was instrumental in carrying out attacks on Indian soil during his tenure as head of the state.

In the interview given to Pakistan-based journalist Nadeem Malik, Musharraf welcomed the action being taken against the Jaish-e-Mohammad and said it was the same organisation that had carried out an assassination attempt on him when he was president of Pakistan.

“This is a good move. I have always said that the JeM is a terrorist organisation and they only had carried out a suicide attack in an attempt to assassinate me. Action should be taken against them. I am happy the government is taking a tough stand against them,” he said.

A suicide bomber had attempted to assassinate General Pervez Musharraf in December 2003 at Jhanda Chichi. Recalling the incident, Musharraf said that it was fortunate that he wasn’t killed in the attempt.

“The attacker pressed the button a few seconds too late and I had crossed the bridge by that time,” Musharraf said, adding that the action against the JeM was a right action and that it should have been done earlier.

Responding to a question as to why he himself had not taken any action against the Jaish leadership and the organisation when he was in power, Musharraf implied that Pakistan’s intelligence agencies were using the Jaish to carry out bombings in India.

“Those were different times. Our intelligence men were involved in a tit-for-tat between India and Pakistan. They were conducting bombings in Pakistan and we were getting bomb blasts done there (in India). This was continuing at that time and amid all of this, no major action was taken against the Jaish. And I also did not insist,” Musharraf said.