Pak open to handing over men of concern: Bilawal

Pakistan’s former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said his country has no objection to extraditing “individuals of concern” to India as a confidence-building measure as long as New Delhi shows willingness to cooperate in the process.

The Pakistan politician put the onus on India for the inability of his country to extradite terrorists — Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) chief Hafiz Saeed and Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar.

Prosecuting the two for cross-border terrorism in India was difficult due to “non-compliance” from Delhi, Bilawal claimed.

India, he said, was refusing to comply with certain basic elements required for the conviction to take place. “It’s important…to present evidence in courts, for people to come over from India to testify, to put up with whatever counter-accusations there will be.”

“If India is willing to cooperate in that process, I am sure there will be no hurdle in extraditing any individual of concern,” he said.

Bilawal expressed concern over India’s vow to pursue terrorists, calling it a “new abnormal”. This does not serve the interests of Pakistan, nor of India, he said.

Bilawal, however, made a startling claim — and possibly incorrect — saying that Masood Azhar, who heads the JeM, was in Afghanistan, not in Pakistan.

Azhar is one of the terrorists released from prison as a swap deal to secure the release of passengers on board the hijacked Indian Airlines flight IC 814 in 1999. Accomplices of Azhar had hijacked the plane and taken it to Kandahar in Afghanistan.

Azhar has often been reported by Indian agencies as having been seen in Pakistan.

In an interview with a television channel, Bilawal was asked about the whereabouts of Haifz Saeed and Masood Azhar to which he said Saeed was incarcerated.

“It is factually not correct that Saeed is a free man; he is in custody of the Pakistani state,” he said, adding that Islamabad had been unable to arrest Azhar. “It is our belief that he is in Afghanistan,” Bilawal said.

Bilawal said, “If and when India shares information that Azhar is on Pakistani soil, we will be more than happy to arrest him.”

Bilawal, chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party, made the comments in an interview with Al Jazeera on Friday.

Both the LeT and the JeM have been banned by Pakistan, according to the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA).

Saeed, the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack mastermind, is currently serving a 33-year sentence for terror financing, and Azhar, a UN-designated global terrorist, has been proscribed by NACTA.

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