ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has rejected the malicious statement by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) regarding the conviction of Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, leader of proscribed organization Lashkar-e-Taiba.
A day earlier, India had questioned the timing of action against Lakhvi who was convicted of terror financing by a Lahore anti-terrorism court on Friday.
According to Indian media, the MEA said that UN proscribed entities and designated terrorists act as proxies for Pakistan’s establishment to fulfill Islamabad’s anti-India agenda. The action was taken to suggest a “sense of compliance” ahead of the Financial Action Taskforce meet, it added.
The spokesman of Foreign Office (FO), Zahid Hafeez Chaudri in a statement said, “Pakistan categorically rejects the malicious statement by the MEA regarding the conviction of an UN-designated individual by an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan.
The spokesman further said India has no locus standi to comment on the independent judicial mechanisms of Pakistan. “In this regard, the only ‘compliance’ that interests Pakistan is abiding by its own statutes and fulfillment of its international obligations,” the statement said.
The FO said: “Investigations, prosecutions and subsequent convictions, through due process, are a reflection of the effectiveness of Pakistan’s legal system, which operates independently of any extraneous factors or influences.
“India’s assertions to link Pakistan’s due legal process with FATF are unfortunate. It is yet another Indian attempt to politicise FATF and use its processes against Pakistan, it added. Pakistan reiterates its commitment to impartiality, confidentiality and technical nature of the FATF process, the statement read.
The Indian insinuation against Pakistan was a vain attempt to conceal the former’s failure to bring to justice those blatantly involved in state terrorism and the brutal suppression against the subjugated people of occupied Kashmir and other minority communities, the statement added.
“As for the hypocritical Indian assertions regarding the ‘terror infrastructure’ and ‘individual terrorists’, irrefutable evidence has already been provided by Pakistan to the world community of the active aiding, abetting, planning, promoting, financing and execution of terrorist activities by India against Pakistan, with impunity,” it said.
The FO suggested that India would do well to put its own house in order and rein in its terror infrastructure that is aimed at destabilizing India’s neighboring countries in order to fulfill the extremist agenda of the RSS-BJP regime.
“We also expect the UN counter-terrorism bodies to proceed on the basis of concrete evidence provided by Pakistan, urge India to renounce the use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy, and play their part in securing the dismantling of the Indian terrorist infrastructure, the statement said.
