India on Friday strongly refuted “absurd” allegations peddled by Pakistan over Dasu bus explosion incident and said that the international community is well aware of Islamabad’s credentials when it comes to terrorism.

The response came a day after Pakistan alleged that India and Afghanistan were behind last month’s suicide attack on a shuttle bus in the country’s restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that killed 13 people, including nine Chinese engineers. The bomb attack took place on July 14 in the Dasu area of Upper Kohistan district where a Chinese company is building a 4,300-megawatt hydropower project on the Indus river. The bus fell into a deep ravine after the explosion.

In response to this, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) official spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said, “We have seen reports on the absurd comments made by Foreign Minister of Pakistan on the incident in Dasu. This is yet another attempt by Pakistan to malign India, in a bid to deflect international attention from its role as the epicentre of regional instability and a safe haven for proscribed terrorists.”

“India has been at the forefront of global efforts against terrorism in partnership with the international community, which is well aware of Pakistan’s credentials when it comes to terrorism. Such desperate attempts by Pakistan at peddling lies and propaganda will therefore find few takers.”

Addressing a press conference on Thursday in Islamabad after the completion of the probe, also assisted by Chinese experts, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Afghan soil was used and the vehicle used for the attack was smuggled from Afghanistan.

He accused the Indian spy agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) of carrying out the attack. “It was a blind case but Pakistani institutions managed to trace it,” Qureshi said, alleging that there is a nexus of the two agencies which were behind the incident.

He said the Pakistani authorities examined footage of 36 CCTV cameras while the area under the investigation was almost 1,400 kilometres.