Amidst ongoing terrorism stemming from the western borders and its tragic toll on human lives, Islamabad reiterated its demand on Sunday for the Taliban Government to extradite TTP terrorists implicated in the Bisham attack targeting Chinese nationals back to Pakistan.
Addressing a news conference, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said they had concrete evidence that the TTP carried out the terror attack on the Chinese engineers and Afghan soil was used for it. He said based on concrete evidence, they again contacted interim authorities in Kabul urging them to hand over terrorists involved to Pakistan but “good results are not coming from there”.
Pakistan made the latest demand as the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) stated that an army captain and soldier were martyred, while five terrorists were killed during an exchange of fire in Peshawar district’s Hassan Khel area. And the Q1 2024 Security Report issued by Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) revealed that the country witnessed at least 432 violence-linked fatalities and 370 injuries among civilians, security personnel and outlaws resulting from as many as 245 incidents of terror attacks and counter-terror operations. TTP elements based in Afghanistan were directly or indirectly involved in most of these gruesome incidents that also included attacks on Chinese nationals in Pakistan, especially those engaged in developmental activities in Pakistan. In the absence of required cooperation from Kabul, Pakistan has to beef up security arrangements for Chinese nationals including a plan to establish a Safe City project for Dasu and Chilas to ensure the security of Chinese and other foreign nationals. As for Bisham attack, the Interior Minister highlighted findings of the investigations which confirm involvement of TTP terrorists in the tragedy that was aimed at trying to undermine progress on vital development projects in Pakistan and create a rift between Islamabad and Beijing but the enemy miserably failed in achieving its nefarious objectives. Despite concrete evidence that the Afghan soil is repeatedly being used for anti-Pakistan activities, Islamabad has exercised extreme restraints and extended critical economic and diplomatic support to Afghanistan but authorities in Kabul are not reciprocating these goodwill gestures. It is because of the continued anti-Pakistan posture of the Kabul regime that we have been urging the decision-makers to review their policy and strategy vis-à-vis Afghanistan as there is no concept of unending unilateral concessions in the inter-state relations.
