Pak senators question protection given to Masood Azhar

Pakistani senators have objected to the continued protection being given by the Pakistani state to Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar, the prime accused in the attacks on India’s Parliament and the Pathankot base of the Indian Army, even though China has been repeatedly protecting and supporting the terrorist mastermind on international fora on Pakistan’s behest, 

In the first week of January, the Pakistan Senate Committee on Human Rights criticised the Nawaz Sharif led government for “letting banned militants’ organization operate” in Pakistan. 

The 13-member committee, which has members from all the leading political parties of Pakistan including Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League, called for implementing the recommendations of the Justice Faiz Isa report on the Quetta bombing that took place on 8 August 2016, killing close to 70 people.

Senator Farhatullah Babar of Pakistan People’s Party questioned the Pakistan government’s intention behind protecting Azhar from United Nations sanctions. He said that China would not have protected Azhar unless it was asked to do so by the Pakistan government. 

“We need to know why an outfit that is banned in Pakistan as a militant organisation should be protected from the sanctions by the UN,” the senator reportedly stated in the Senate on 2 January.

The senator, in an obvious reference to the chief of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Hafiz Saeed, stated that people associated with banned organisations were “roaming freely and resurfacing under new names, while the state continued to remain silent”.

His observations got support from Senator Nasreen Jalil of Mutahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM), who is the chairperson of the committee. “This is not acceptable. How can we defeat this menace [terrorism] if you [secretly] support them?” she argued.

Senator Jehanzeb Jamaldini of Balochistan National Party (BNP-M), who lost one of his sons in the Quetta blast, claimed that the Interior Minister of Pakistan was hand in glove with the terror organisations. “If there is no support for [such outfits], terrorism will die down within a month,” he asserted.

Senator Aitzaz Ahsan of PPP told the committee that the report on the Quetta carnage revealed that action had not been taken against banned organisations.

The senators’ comments came days after China blocked a UN attempt to blacklist Masood Azhar. China’s veto in the last week of December stopped the counter terror committee of the UN Security Council from blacklisting Azhar. India issued a strong note of protest and termed China’s action as “surprising”.