Pakistan to hand over dossier on ‘Indian interference’ to new UN chief

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, Dec 31, 2016: Pakistan has prepared a new dossier on alleged “Indian interference” in its internal affairs that will be presented to incoming UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, according to a media report on Saturday.

The dossier includes information on former Indian Navy personnel Kulbhushan Jadhav, whom Pakistan has accused of being an operative of RAW, and “evidence” of an attempt by an Indian submarine to violate Pakistan’s maritime boundary, the Dawn newspaper quoted its sources as saying.

The document will be handed over by Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN, Maleeha Lodhi, on January 2 to Guterres on his first working day at the UN headquarters in New York.

Lodhi had presented three dossiers to then UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon in October 2015 that reportedly contained proof of “Indian interference” in Balochistan, the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan and Karachi. “But the move did not get much traction”, the report said.

The Pakistani military announced Jadhav’s capture in March and claimed he was an intelligence operative trying to foment unrest in Balochistan and Karachi. The military also claimed his capture was “proof of Indian interference and state-sponsored terrorism” but is yet to furnish any evidence linking Jadhav to terrorist incidents.

India has rejected these charges and said Jadhav was not an operative of the Research and Analysis Wing. Pakistan has also turned down India’s repeated demands for consular access to Jadhav.

The Pakistan government said earlier this year that it would expose India’s alleged role in terrorism but it “domestically faced a lot of criticism for the delay in presenting to the international community evidence of Jadhav’s involvement in subversive activities”, the Dawn reported.

Responding to the criticism in the Senate or upper house of Parliament, foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz said on December 7 that there was “insufficient material” on Jadhav and this had delayed the finalisation of a dossier.

“It is not that material has been provided and it’s lacking in English and we are overcoming it. The (provided) material, in our view, was insufficient,” Aziz told a meeting of the Senate Committee of the Whole House.

Unnamed officials were quoted by daily as saying on Friday that “the required additional information” had been made available and the dossier was completed. The officials did not share specifics but said the dossier would contain “proofs that India was patronising terrorism in Pakistan”.

The submarine incident, which occurred in November, coincided with the fourth Pakistan-China naval exercise and the start of shipping under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor from Gwadar port. The Pakistan Navy had claimed at the time that the Indian Navy had “deceitfully deployed its submarines against Pakistan with ulterior motives”.