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India funding Taliban: Malik

* Islamabad has ‘solid evidence’ of Indian involvement in Balochistan
* Education security zones set up in capital

LAHORE: India is creating unrest within Pakistan by funding the Taliban based along the Pak-Afghan border and by interfering in Balochistan, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Monday.

I an interview with a private TV channel, Malik said there were ‘certain hostile forces’, including India, that were backing the Taliban to destabilise Pakistan.

To a question, he said Islamabad could demand that Bharatiya Janata Party leader LK Advani be extradited if his name was included in the first information report of former prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan’s murder.

“If the Indian interior minister or anyone else wants to confront me on this, I will be very happy to accommodate them because I know that what I am saying is correct,” he said. To another question, he said India had received intelligence reports about possible attacks in Mumbai in July of 2008, adding it was Delhi’s failure that they could not prevent the attacks in time.

Solid evidence: He said Islamabad had ‘solid evidence’ of Indian involvement in the unrest in Balochistan, adding the information could be shared with Indian ministers or representatives at any forum of their choice.

“I invite their interior minister or anyone else to come to Pakistan. I will go on the record with all the material I have on India’s involvement in Balochistan. I will prove it to the world,” he said.

Security zones: Separately, Malik said education security zones had been set up in the capital to increase security of educational institutions, APP reported.

The minister said that under the programme, 300 well-trained security guards of civil defence would provide security to schools, colleges and universitates in various sectors of the capital.

He said after the bomb attack on the International Islamic University, the government decided to provide a red zone like tight security to the entire capital.

“We will satisfy the security requirement of the residents of the capital,” he said.

To a question, Malik said the government was equally concentrating on security arrangements for both public and private schools, adding private institutions would be administratively bound to make proper security arrangements.

He said the government had closed education institutes across the country because of security reassessment and concerns of parents. “But there was pressure from parents, vice chancellors and education heads and students to open institutions so that it did not give an impression that the nation was surrendering to the terrorists. We are not afraid, we are ready to fight,” the minister said.

“To cope with this pressure, I constituted two separate committees, one for schools and the other for colleges. On the recommendation of these committees we decide to open the institutions,” he added. daily times monitor/app

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