India financing terror activities: foreign office

Foreign Office on Thursday insisted that Indian state agencies are not only involved in terrorism in Pakistan but they also finance terror activities and terrorist organisations to destabilise the country.
Foreign Office Spokesperson Nafees Zakaria told his weekly media briefing that Pakistan has already taken up the issue of Indian involvement in terrorism and terror financing in Pakistan with the UN Secretary General.
He said that Pakistan is one of the biggest victims of terrorism, more so, of the terrorist activities perpetrated by Indian state agencies. "They [Indian agencies] not only perpetrate such activities but also finance such terror activities. We have already taken up this issue and we will constantly take it up with the international community," he added.
About Lahore terror attack, he said investigations into the attack are under way and some arrests have also been made. He further said that Pakistan-China co-operation on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and a number of other projects are well known and reflect the special relationship between the two countries. "Cooperation is better than conflict and we expect other countries to understand this", he added.
Responding to another question, he said that India's defence build-up is a threat to regional peace and stability, adding India's ambitious programme of arms purchases is perpetuating a perilous arms race, which is not in the interest of the region. He said that India's nuclear weapons ambition is also a matter of grave concern from the regional security perspective.
In context of the CPEC, he said, "India has opposed it and we have also responded to it," adding a number of Indian High Commission officials were charge-sheeted last year for their activities to sabotage CPEC as well as other subversive activities. He said that Kulbhushan Yadev in his confession also revealed that sabotage of CPEC was among the plan. "We are looking at this aspect of defence build-up as it is disturbing the strategic balance of conventional weapons and its adverse bearing on regional peace," he added.
About the situation of religious minorities in India, he said that attacks in India by the Hindu extremists on minorities, especially Muslims, Christians and Dalits, have been enormously on the increase in recent years. He said that Muslims are being killed by Hindu extremist and fanatics for slaughtering cows and for eating beef, adding they are being forcefully converted to Hinduism through 'Ghar Wapsi Programme.'
Similarly, he added that Hindu terrorist organisations have mounted attacks on Muslims in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
To another query about the conference hosted by Russian on Afghanistan in Moscow attended by Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, India and Iran, he said that the six-party talks, which concluded on Wednesday, discussed regional approaches to the security situation in Afghanistan and agreed to enlargement of this six-party format with the inclusion of Central Asian countries, at first.
He said that they also agreed to further increase efforts towards peace and stability in Afghanistan under an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process. "Pakistan welcomes all such initiatives. We expect regional countries to play their constructive role in this regard," he added.
To another query, he said that the proposed inclusion of Central Asian States to further expand the six nation format was the outcome of the meeting that was held in Moscow.
He said that it was the first meeting of the forum and he cannot reflect on it that the initiative will supplement other initiatives, such as Heart of Asia. He said that there is a common concern of the regional countries on the growing footprint of terrorist organisations like ISIS in Afghanistan, and is directly related to the peace efforts to stabilise Afghanistan, as well as maintaining regional peace.
About the recent summoning of top Afghan diplomat, he said that turmoil in Afghanistan, which has been persisting for almost forty years now and especially the current situation in the last few years, has created space for the violent non-state actors and terrorist organisations to find their foothold there.