‘Pak the problem, not the solution’

The Indian security establishment’s assertion that the recent spate of blasts in several cities was “SIMI-executed, ISI-backed” got a major fillip at the Intelligence Bureau-hosted seminar on terrorism today, reports Nandini R Iyer.

The Indian security establishment’s assertion that the recent spate of blasts in several cities was “SIMI-executed, ISI-backed” got a major fillip at the Intelligence Bureau-hosted seminar on terrorism on Monday.

HT Image

Key international delegates spoke out against Pakistan’s intelligence agency for fanning fundamentalism and terror in neighbouring countries. Pakistan, however, was the only nation from which no serving official attended. A retired bureaucrat (a former interior secretary), Tasneem Noorani, was the only Pakistani delegate.

Making it evident that Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s presence at Asif Ali Zardari’s swearing-in as Pakistan President had not changed the public perception on terror, co-founder of Afghanistan’s Centre for Research and Policy Studies, Haroun Mir — speaking on the ‘Impact of Terrorism in South Asia and its neighbouring regions’ — openly blamed Pakistan.

“He (Mir) said that Pakistan can hardly be a part of the solution… it is the problem,” said one director general of police who attended the Asia-Pacific Regional Seminar on Terrorism. “The gist of what he said was that the ISI had devastated Afghanistan right from the point when it helped create the Taliban and that Afghanistan’s people would continue paying the price for decades to come,” the officer added.

Earlier in the morning, inaugurating the seminar, Home Minister Shivraj Patil said there was a need for “countries not to provide shelter to terrorist” — evidently a clear reference to India’s assertion that Dawood Ibrahim is hiding in Pakistan.