No need to exaggerate OIC's significance: Ansari

Vice President Hamid Ansari today said there was no need to exaggerate the significance of the OIC by asking it to rein in Pakistan from indulging in cross-border terrorism activities against India.
Ansari, who is on a five-day visit to Nigeria and Mali, was asked by reporters accompanying him whether India would take up this issue with these two West African nations which are members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
"The facts of the case are clear. Cross-border terrorism activities are encouraged by state agencies or state agencies- groups sponsored and that is detrimental to peace anywhere in the world," he said, without naming Pakistan.

"You talk to OIC members individually and they say they know about it (the issue)," he added.
"OIC is a strange kind of organisation where everything is done by consensus. So we should not exaggerate the significance of the OIC," he went on to add.
The OIC is an international organisation founded in 1969 consisting of 57 Muslim states spread over four continents.

Ansari said terrorist networks are becoming global networks and so there was a need to have a solid system in place on exchange of information.
"Terrorism is an international phenomenon and comes in different forms and shapes. It may be in one form in India and another in Nigeria or any other country. But wherever there is terrorism, social peace is disturbed. And this hampers social progress and development. So everyone has to fight terrorism," he said.

Commenting on attacks on some Africans in India in the past few months, he said the government sees these as stray incidents which are not targeted against citizens of any particular country.
"There is no racial discrimination," he asserted. "There are problems but these problems are not the making of the government. The law-and-order agencies are taking care of such problems.