Islamabad : A senior minister of Pakistan’s Punjab province has said the Pakistan government cannot take legal action against terror groups like Jamaat-ud-Dawah or JuD and the Jaish-e-Mohammad or JeM, as the “state itself is involved” with them.
In an interview to BBC Urdu, Punjab law minister Rana Sanaullah was asked why legal action has never been taken against anti-India groups which were close to the “establishment”.
“By pro-establishment groups if you mean JuD and JeM, then let me tell you that they have been declared proscribed organisations and they can no longer carry out any activity in the province,” he said.
But the minister ruled out the possibility of any legal action against the groups, saying “How can you prosecute a group with whom the state itself has been involved?”
Pakistan had repeatedly denied that it is patronising terror groups like JuD and JeM, which carry out terror attacks in India, contending that they are “non-state actors” who are not in its control.
The admission by Sanaullah about the Pakistani involvement is expected to increase international pressure on Islamabad to act against all militants groups, including the Haqqani network, which is active in Afghanistan.
