INTERIOR Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad has categorically stated that India was funding terror outfits in Pakistan and trying to damage the country through its agents. Addressing a ceremony in Islamabad on Sunday he said India wants to damage Pakistan from inside and was aiding and abetting militant groups for the purpose, adding that Pakistan armed forces were fully alive to the situation and would foil designs of the enemy.
The remarks of the Interior Minister come in the backdrop of brutal killing of Hazara coal-miners in the Mach area of Balochistan, which have been claimed by the terror outfit ISIS. Separately, Prime Minister Imran Khan also divulged that this was the unanimous opinion of the government and the security agencies that India was backing ISIS. Unfortunately, the international community is not taking the issue of India-sponsored terrorism despite availability of irrefutable evidence, as also contained in the dossiers that Pakistan has provided to the United Nations and important capitals of the world. This is because of India’s economic and political clout as well as sustained propaganda that are aimed at diverting attention from its own black deeds and instead drawing attention towards Pakistan on a groundless basis. This became evident once again that instead of focusing attention on India, the United States chose to put further pressure on Pakistan by asking Islamabad to prosecute Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi not just in a terror-financing case (in which he has been prosecuted) but also in the November 2008 attack. Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson has promptly retorted that the country was fully abiding by its own statues and fulfilling international obligations, adding that the State Department should reserve its concern for the active aiding, abetting, planning, promoting, financing and execution of terrorist activities by India for which sufficient irrefutable evidence has already been provided. It is hoped that consistent efforts by Pakistan on the diplomatic front would, one day, lead to full sensitization of the global community on the issue of terrorism by India. In this regard, one must give credit to Pakistan Foreign Office especially the country’s permanent representative at the UN who foiled India’s desperate bid to assume chairmanship of the powerful 1267 Al-Qaeda/Daesh Sanctions Committee and the 1540 Non-Proliferation Committee and also to become the custodian of the Afghanistan file in the Security Council. What an irony that a country with an active association with Daesh was dreaming to head the crucial body on the subject, a clear spoiler (of peace process) would have looked after the Afghanistan file and a staunch enemy of Pakistan would have got a lethal role to malign Islamabad on the nuclear issue. The diplomatic success of Pakistan speaks volumes about the real potential of our diplomacy provided sustained hard-work is done on related issues.
