New Delhi: Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Thursday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for holding Kartarpur Corridor talks as planned despite the heightened tensions between India and Pakistan following the ghastly Pulwama terror attack.
“I’m grateful to the Prime Minister that he stands firm in his commitment to the Sikh community. The talks will carry on as they had been planned. March 14 was fixed by both governments for discussions on the Kartarpur corridor,” Harsimrat told ANI. On Wednesday, an official statement said that India and Pakistan will be holding the first meeting to discuss and finalise modalities for the Kartarpur Corridor at the Attari-Wagah on March 14.
“India has also proposed that a technical level discussion on the alignment of the corridor be held on the same day on the sidelines of this meeting,” the statement read. Following this, the Indian delegation is due to visit Islamabad on March 28, according to Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Tensions between India and Pakistan are high following the February 14 terror attack, as over 40 CRPF personnel lost their lives after a Jaish-e-Mohammed operative attacked their convoy in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama.
Pakistan has since taken steps to de-escalate tensions with India by announcing the return of its High Commissioner to India, Sohail Mahmood, to New Delhi on March 6. Mahmood had left New Delhi for Islamabad on February 18.Pakistan, on Tuesday night, also put Jamaat-ul-Da’awa (JuD) and its sister-organisation Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), which are the front organisations of Lashkar-e-Taiba terror outfit, in the banned list under Anti Terrorism Act 1997.
However, there has been no new action by Pakistan against JeM, which claimed responsibility for the Pulwama terror attack. Even though the terror outfit was put in the proscribed list in 2002, it has been lately operating openly and its chief Masood Azhar roaming about freely in Pakistan. There has been intense global pressure against Pakistan to stop supporting terrorists and terror outfits after India mounted a diplomatic campaign in this regard.Succumbing to this, Pakistan launched a crackdown against terror outfits, taking JeM kingpin Masood Azhar’s brother and son, along with 42 other activists of banned outfits, into “preventive detention”.
