New Delhi: Dismissing the Pakistani army chief’s calling Kashmir the “jugular vein” of his country, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said the only relation the region has with Pakistan is that Islamabad illegally occupies part of it.At the weekly press briefing on Thursday (April 17), MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal in light of Tahawwur Rana’s extradition to India also said that Pakistan continued to “shield” perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks and ought to bring them to justice.Pakistani chief of army staff General Asim Munir while at the Overseas Pakistanis’ Convention in Islamabad on Tuesday said that the military and the government’s stance on Kashmir is that it was and is the country’s “jugular vein”, a phrase that has also been used by the Pakistani establishment in the past.“We will not forget it. And we will not leave our Kashmiri brethren in their heroic struggle, what they are waging against the Indian occupation,” General Munir said.Asked about his remarks, Jaiswal said: “How can anything foreign be there in a jugular vein?”“This is a Union territory of India. Its only relationship with Pakistan is the vacation of illegally occupied territories by that country,” he continued.General Munir had also backed Pakistan founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s two-nation theory at the convention.“Our forefathers thought that we are different from the Hindus in every possible aspect of life. Our religion is different, our customs are different, our traditions are different, our thoughts are different, our ambitions are different.“That was the foundation of the two-nation theory that was laid there. That we are two nations, we are not one nation,” he said, adding that an “incessant struggle” had to be fought to ensure the existence of Pakistan.‘Pakistan’s reputation as epicentre of terrorism will remain’The MEA on Thursday was also asked about Islamabad distancing itself from Rana, whom the National Investigation Agency claims was “the key conspirator” and “mastermind” behind the 2008 attacks that killed 166 people.Foreign office spokesperson Shafqat Ali Khan had said last Thursday – the day Rana was extradited from the US to India – that “as far as our record indicates, he [Rana] did not even apply for renewal for his Pakistani origin documents for the last two decades [sic]”.Jaiswal said that while Islamabad “may try very hard”, its “reputation as the epicentre of global terrorism will not diminish”.“The extradition of Rana is a reminder yet again to Pakistan that it needs to act to bring to justice other perpetrators of Mumbai terror attacks, whom it continues to shield,” he added.A Canadian citizen of Pakistani origin, Rana was brought to India to face the government’s charges after Washington moved to extradite him and the US judiciary upheld his extradition over multiple rounds of appeal.Years before his extradition, Rana in 2011 was convicted by a US court of providing material support to the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) terror outfit, although he was acquitted of conspiring to provide material support to the Mumbai attacks.He had also been convicted of providing support to a terrorism plot in Denmark.His trial in the US revealed that in the years leading up to 2008, he supported the opening of a Mumbai branch of his Chicago-based immigration firm, which his childhood friend David Headley used as a front to locate sites for the attacks on behalf of the LeT.Rana also assisted Headley with obtaining Indian visas.LeT operatives Hafiz Saeed, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and Sajid Mir were sentenced by Pakistani courts on terror financing charges, but the whereabouts of the latter two are unclear.