Following the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) decision to keep Pakistan in the “grey list”, India is all set to step up more pressure on Islamabad to take “credible action” against terrorists who figured in the list of most-wanted criminals handed over to it along with dossiers of evidence long ago. India will not only remind Islamabad of the evidence and dossiers given to it, but will seek a concrete answer from it on the action taken so far or how it plans to act against those terrorists in future.
Moreover, Indian diplomats will also reach out to the UN, US and other power nations of the world community explaining to them about how Pakistan is sitting on “evidence” given by New Delhi for the action against the individuals who are in the list of ‘most wanted’ terrorists.
That the Central government designated 18 key operatives and leaders of terror groups as individual terrorists under the recently-amended Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) has necessitated the MEA’s mission to exert pressure on Islamabad.
“Simply, making statements and releasing lists of terrorists would not work. What is also needed is that we should be more active in terms of exerting pressure on Pakistan so that it could be exposed for ignoring the evidence given to it by India,” says an official privy to what transpired in the meeting at South Block.
The Central government has recently designated 18 key operatives and leaders of terror groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Indian Mujahideen (IM) and members of the Dawood Ibrahim gang as individual terrorists under the recently-amended Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). Those in the list include key 26/11 conspirators Sajid Mir and Yusuf Muzammil alias Muzammil Butt; IC 814 case accused and JeM leaders Ibrahim Athar and Yusuf Azhar; JeM chief Masood Azhar’s brother Rauf Asghar, who is key conspirator in Parliament Attack, Pathankot Airbase attack and the Pulwama CRPF convoy attack cases.
“After this move of the government, India needs to seek an explanation from Pakistan as to why it has not taken any action or why it is not doing anything against these terror elements,” said the official.
“India has in the past handed over dozens of dossiers exposing Pakistan based terrorists’ links to the violent activities in India. Clinching evidence to establish how Pakistan’s state actors were hand in glove with the terror outfits behind attacks in India,” he said. “But where is the action,” he added.
Now the diplomatic mission planners have decided to mount an offensive on Pakistan, going beyond issuing statements. According to sources, MEA leadership has asked the diplomats to take the issue of Pakistan’s connivance with terrorists up with the UN, US and other global forums afresh. “This should be in a massive diplomatic mission mode,” said an official.
Sources told TDG that diplomats have been given all the relevant documents so that they can prepare solid ground to carry forward the mission. They will be meeting diplomats in major countries with key documents that expose Pakistan on the issue of terrorism, sources added.