- Maj Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa says Pakistan Army ‘indiscriminately’ targeting banned outfits, terrorists
- Pakistan may soon ban Jamaatud Dawa (JuD), Haqqani Network and 10 other terror groups, says report
Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Asim Saleem Bajwa on Thursday said that the Pakistan Army is conducting an indiscriminate operation against all banned outfits and extremist organisations. However, he said that India is making it difficult for Pakistan to counter terrorism.
Expressing Pakistan’s resolve to continue military operations until the elimination of terrorism from the country, the ISPR DG said that the operations against terrorists, including the ones in North Waziristan, are continuing successfully.
Bajwa said that the attack on Karachi Airport was the “turning point” after which the Pakistan Army launched operation against terrorists. He further said that they would not let the Pakistani soil get used against any country.
The ISPR DG said that India is continuously violating the border agreement with Pakistan and it wanted to “deviate” Pakistan’s attention from its struggle for peace. He said that Prime Minsiter Nawaz Sharif made all-out efforts to better relation with India and his counterpart Narendra Modi also met him in this regard, however India suspended the foreign secretary-level talks. Pakistan had also offered India to hold talks on the DG-level, he added.
Holding the Kashmir issue as a big hurdle in the peace-making struggles of Pakistan and India, Bajwa said that India was wrongly blaming Pakistan.
CRACKING DOWN ON JUD, HAQQANI NETWORK:
In the meanwhile, a report in the local media said that Pakistan may soon ban 10 terror outfits, including Hafiz Saeed-led Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) and the dreaded Afghan-based Haqqani Network.
“The move is seen by experts as a paradigm shift in the country’s security policy in the wake of Peshawar school massacre,” the report stated.
The move came a day after the US declared the fugitive chief of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Mullah Fazlullah as ‘Specially Designated Global Terrorist’ following US Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Pakistan this week.
A formal announcement to this effect would be made in “coming days”, the report said, citing official sources.
The decision will certainly be welcomed by Washington and Kabul as well as New Delhi, analysts believe.
They believe a ban on JuD is a significant development as India, as well as the US, have long considered JuD as a front for the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba terror outfit involved in the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai that left 166 people dead.
The UN Security Council designated the JuD a front for the LeT after the Mumbai attacks. Since then, the United Nations and US have sanctioned several JuD leaders.
The Haqqani network, founded by Jalaluddin Haqqani, has been blamed for the Indian embassy bombing in Kabul in 2008 that left 58 people dead, a 2011 attack on the US embassy in Kabul, and several big truck bombing attempts in Afghanistan.
The group was designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States in September 2012.
Pakistan’s government and opposition parties have approved a wide-ranging National Action Plan against terrorism after Peshawar school attack that left 150 people dead, mostly students, in December.
Pakistan banned 12 new organisations days before Kerry visited Pakistan this week, officials at the interior ministry revealed.
With this latest addition, the number of proscribed outfits in Pakistan will reach to 72.
