ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's top officials on Saturday said they are in possession of “irrefutable evidence” of India’s sponsorship of terrorism on Pakistani soil and will present it to the United Nations (UN) and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
Islamabad has long claimed that India sponsors militant groups in Pakistan — claims India has always denied — but Saturday's announcement at a joint press conference of the country's top diplomat and military spokesperson in Islamabad provided specific accusations.
Holding a dossier during the conference, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that it contained "irrefutable evidence of India’s financial and material sponsorship of multiple terrorist organizations, including UN-designated terrorist groups."
“Pakistan will present this dossier to the UN, OIC, P-5 countries and others,” he said, presenting its details that included audio recordings and video clips documenting purported communication between Indian intelligence operatives and militants.
“Indian agencies through their subversive activities want to reverse Pakistan's success against terrorism by nurturing nationalism and sub-nationalism in the country, especially in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), Balochistan and the erstwhile tribal territories,” Qureshi said
The foreign minister claimed that India had provided Rs22 billion to terrorist organizations in the last three years, adding that a special cell, which operated under the direct supervision of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was working to sabotage the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
“Rs80 billion have been allocated so far and a militia of 700 people has been raised to disrupt CPEC projects,” he said. “This is because New Delhi understands that the project can be an economic game changer for Pakistan.”
He maintained that while Pakistan was combating terrorism on its soil, India was using its territory to entangle its western neighbor in the web of terrorism.
"India cannot tolerate Pakistan’s success against terrorism,” he said. “In the last few months, India has tried its best to fan terrorism across Pakistan by supporting militant groups that were defeated and outlawed by Pakistan.”
Addressing the news conference, Maj. Gen. Babar Iftikhar, the director general of the military media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), said that India was trying to establish a consortium of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and proscribed dissident Baloch organizations working under the banner of Baloch Raaji Aajoi Sangar (BRAS) that was constituted in 2018.
“India is trying to establish a link between Pakistan and the militant Islamic State (IS) by creating Daesh-e-Pakistan. Recently, 20 Indian Daesh militants were relocated from India to camps along the Pak-Afghan border. These militants were handed over to Daesh Commander Sheikh Abdul Rahim alias Abdul Rehman Muslim Dost," he said.
According to Iftikhar, Indian ambassadors in Afghanistan regularly supervised terrorist activities, adding that evidence to showed that Indian embassy in Kabul and consulates along the Pak-Afghan border had become nodes of terrorism that were used to project violence inside Pakistan
He said that an Indian intelligence officer, Col. Rajesh, was employed in the Indian embassy in Afghanistan, adding that he had held four meetings with the commanders of these terrorist outfits "to synergize their efforts and increase terrorist activities in metropolitan cities of Pakistan in November and December 2020."
He also linked the recent upsurge of violence in Pakistan to what he said was New Delhi's intensified engagement with different brands of terrorists, sub-nationalists and dissidents operating against Pakistan.
"Besides terrorist funding, India has also been rendering support to various entities through provision of weapons, ammunition and IEDs [improvised explosive devices]. RAW [Research and Analysis Wing] agents were found involved in motivating tribal people in KP [Khyber Pakhtunkhwa] to send fighters to Afghanistan for training," he said, adding that Indian intelligence agencies were managing 87 terrorist camps, 66 of them in Afghanistan and 21 in India.
“A former Indian army general and ambassador visited Baloch militant training camp housing 150 militants in Hajigak area of Afghanistan,” Iftikhar said, adding that the network was also involved in the killings of ulema, police officials and other notables, and that the Indian spy agency was paying Rs10 million for suicide attacks and vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices and Rs1 million for IEDs and targeted killings.
After the conference, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan in a series of tweets called on the international community to "force India to end its terrorism."
He added that in the face of the evidence, the world "cannot remain indifferent or silent."
So far, there has been no response from India to the accusations presented by Pakistani officials.
