HYDERABAD: Strongly condemning the attack on a police academy in Quetta in which 61 people were killed, Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu today said Pakistan should realize that using terrorism as a State policy is suicidal.
“It is like ‘Basmasura Hasta’. If you give such an opportunity (using terrorism as a state policy) to Basmasura, at the end of it, it (Basmasura) will also take on you (Pakistan). If you encourage terrorism, you will become a victim of terrorism,” the Urban Development and Information and Broadcasting Minister told a press conference here.
Pakistan has not only made terrorism a State policy but has been continuously aiding, abetting and funding terrorism against India, he said, adding, it’s high time Pakistan realizes it’s adopting a suicidal and foolhardy policy.
Pakistan, he said, has not honored the promise made by its former president Parvez Musharraf to then prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee at the Agra summit that it won’t allow territories under its control to be used for terrorist activities to target India.
“It has not walked the talk,” Naidu said.
“In spite of a number of goodwill gestures and initiatives from India, Pakistan has been adopting double standards by criticizing terrorism on one hand and extending support on the other…fighting against terrorism on the west (Afghan border) and encouraging terrorism in the east (Indian border),” the Minister said.
“The entire support for terrorists and militants, who are targeting India, is coming from Pakistan, which is known to the whole world,” he said.
Naidu said Pakistan has also not cooperated with India in bringing to book the terrorists behind the 26/11 terror attack.
“Over the years, Pakistan has been waging proxy war against India and trying to cripple Indian economy and also create social tensions by using religion as a weapon to encourage terrorism and unnecessarily dragging Kashmir into the picture,” the Minister said.
Sixty-one people, mostly young cadets, were massacred and more than 100 others injured when heavily-armed Islamic State militants attacked a police training centre at Quetta in the capital of the restive Balochistan province Monday night. –PTI