Pakistan minister's statement corroborates our stand: India

India on Friday said that the comments by a Pakistani provincial minister that legal action against militant organisations in his country was not possible because the state itself was involved corroborated New Delhi's stand.

"If the honourable minister indeed said so, it sadly corroborates the view that we have always held about the support and freedom available to anti-India terrorist groups in Pakistan, including internationally sanctioned terrorist groups and individuals," external affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said in his weekly media briefing here.

In a startling revelation, Rana Sanaullah,, law minister of Pakistan's Punjab province, said that legal action against militant groups like Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) was not possible as the "state itself is involved", media reported on Wednesday.

In an interview to BBC Urdu, Sanaullah, on being asked why action has never been taken against pro-establishment and anti-Indian militant groups in the province, responded: "By pro-establishment groups if you mean JuD and JeM, then let me tell you that they have been declared proscribed organisations and they can no longer carry out any activity in the province."

However, ruling out the possibility of legal action against the groups, the Punjab law minister posed: "How can you prosecute a group with whom the state itself has been involved?"

Swarup said on Friday that Sanaullah's remarks also elucidated "the reason for lack of effective action even against those entities and individuals against whom Pakistan has international obligation to act".

"It is up to authorities in Pakistan to address this unfortunate reality in the interest of a normal relationship between our two countries and in broader interest of Pakistan itself," he added..

--IANS

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