Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah said on Tuesday that the authorities had gathered “irrefutable evidence” to establish that India was involved in Lahore’s Johar Town blast in 2021 among other terrorist activities in Pakistan.
The minister said three terrorists linked to India had been arrested in connection with the 2021 blast near the residence of Jamaatud Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed in Lahore’s Johar Town.
He said this while addressing a press conference in Islamabad along with Punjab Counter Terrorism Department Additional Inspector General Imran Mehmood.
Three people died, and 21 others, including women and children, sustained injuries when an explosives-laden vehicle exploded near the house of Hafiz Saeed, leader of the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), in Lahore’s Johar Town neighbourhood on June 23, 2021.
Subsequently, the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) of Lahore in January this year awarded death penalties to four convicts on nine counts each for their involvement in the Johar Town blast.
The ATC judge had awarded death sentences to Peter Paul David, Sajjad Hussain, Eid Gull Khan and Zia Ullah on three counts under each of Sections 302 (b) of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), Section 7-ATA and Section 3-ESA, besides 17 years’ rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs350,000 to them under different sections.
“We have decided to raise the issue of Indian terrorism in the United Nations through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” the interior minister remarked in today’s presser.
“Pakistan has been burning in the fire of terrorism for a long time… whenever a terror incident occurs, India is found involved in it in one way or another,” he added.
