Rejecting the Indian claims, Pakistan on Saturday said that the item seized by the Indian authorities from the commercial vessel is a heat treatment furnace casing system having several industrial applications and it has no possible military dimension.

“The item under question is not listed in any international export control list,” the Foreign Office spokesperson in a statement. The spokesperson said contrary to what is being claimed, the item was correctly declared in the relevant documentation and there was no attempt to hide or conceal any information.

Earlier on Thursday, China strongly rejected an Indian allegation that a detained Karachi-bound Chinese merchant vessel carried cargo that breached non-proliferation and export control restrictions.

The Pakistan-bound merchant vessel from China was detained by India, but the autoclave on the ship that India claimed to be material for ballistic missiles is neither military supplies nor dual-use items under non-proliferation and export control,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lijian Zhao said at a media briefing in Beijing.

He said that China, being a responsible country, abided by international non-proliferation obligations and international commitments. The spokesman said that the operators of the ship had truthfully declared the cargo to the India.

“After getting the information, we know that this item is actually a heat treatment furnace shell system produced by a Chinese company in China,” Lijian Zhao added.

The Chinese spokesperson rejected the Indian allegations that the detained ship had wrongly declared an autoclave, which can be used in the launch process of ballistic missiles, as an industrial dryer.

The Karachi-bound ship Da Cui Yun left Jiangyin Port on January 17, 2020, and has been moored at Kandla since February 3, 2020.

According to leading defence experts, this is not for the first time that Indian premier intelligence agency RAW is trying to create yet another false case against Pakistan.

“There is history of such concocted operations against Pakistan by the Indian agency”, said a defence expert requesting not to be named, adding that India has been failing on the question of evidence. He was of the view that intercepting and detaining a Karachi bound Chinese merchant vessel is yet another Indian aborted attempt to malign Pakistan and to create a wedge between Pakistan and China.