Interior minister sees India behind every terrorist activity in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD – Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah on Tuesday said India was involved in every terrorist activity in Pakistan.

While briefing the press on internal security situation of the country in a joint press conference with Additional Inspector General (AIG) Counter terrorism department (CTD) Imran Mehmood, Mr Sana said the Taliban chapter involved in terrorist activities in the country was backed by India.

The minister added India’s involvement in a bomb attack outside Hafiz Saeed’s residence could be gauged from the fact that Mr Saeed was not present inside his home while the bomb exploded adding the presence of police outside Mr Saeed’s residence halted the car-bomb’s way to his [Saeed’s] residence.

Criticizing India over her atrocities in Kashmir, he said India inflicted the worst cruelty on Kashmiris adding India backs terrorism in the valley to cover her atrocities.

AIG Imran said the CTD traced and arrested all involved in Johar town bomb blast, which resulted in the killing of three and injured 22 others, within 24 hours adding Peter Paul David, Sajad Hussian, and Zia ullah were involved in the blast.

Sami-ul-Haq, Zia’s brother, received terror financing from India. Naveed and Saleem were the masterminds of the attack and Sami-ul-Haq had been working with India’s spy agency RAW since 2012.

Johar Town blast

In his briefing, AIG CTD Mehmood said the incident took place in Lahore’s Johar Town at 11:09am on June 23, 2021.

As much as 200 kilogrammes of explosive materials were used in the blast and a car was used in it. The explosion resulted in the death of three people and injured 22 — including two police officers.

“To date, no terrorist organisation has accepted the responsibility of this attack. Since this was a residential area, cars and homes were severely damaged,” the senior police official said.

As soon as this blast took place, CTD registered a first information report (FIR) and within 16 hours, the department “traced” the case. Also, in the initial 24 hours, CTD arrested three terrorists, Mehmood said.

The first character was Peter Paul David, Mehmood said, who was traced through the vehicle, he said, noting that the terrorist supervised the operation.

“He was affiliated directly with two RAW agents — Ali Budaish and Bablu Srivastava. These agents would terror finance him,” the CTD official said.

Sajjad Hussain was David’s assistant and assisted him in the Johar Town blast, Mehmood said, adding that Hussain also destroyed the phones used to communicate for the explosion.