New Delhi: With Pakistan finding itself in the dock in wake of the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the BJP has demanded that the Congress-led UPA Government should rethink its Pakistan policy.
The party is not happy with the recent decision of the Centre to engage Pakistan in dialogue, especially after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent initiative of inviting Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to Mohali. The issue of terrorism came up for discussion in the BJP core committee meeting chaired by party president Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday.
A statement after the meeting read, "Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Congress-led UPA Government need to introspect upon their policy towards Pakistan. Talks and terror cannot co-exist."
Talking to Express, BJP general secretary Ananth Kumar wanted the UPA Government to "put pressure on Pakistan to extradite Dawood Ibrahim and to show political will in hanging Afzal Guru, the key accused in the Parliament attack."
After the meeting, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley pointed out that in the joint statement of January 6, 2004, Pakistan was required to undertake that its soil will not be used for terrorist activities against India.
That was the formulation of the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, which was accepted by the then Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. But the BJP, he said, rejected Manmohan Singh's formulation of Sharm-el-Sheikh that talks should be delinked from terror.
Reminding that Manmohan Singh had described Pakistan as a victim of terrorism, the party stated, "Pakistan is a sponsor and user of terror and not its victim. Pakistan has not been honest in its commitment that its territory will not be/is not being used for terror. The world has realised this reality. We urge the Government of India also to see reason in it."
The BJP insisted that the very fact that Osama was housed in a mansion close to Pakistani Military Academy established that Pakistan was the epicentre of global terrorism, which was harbouring the most-wanted global terrorist.
India's legitimate concern that those, who perpetrated terror in India, are also housed comfortably in Pakistan is no longer in doubt. Those who use terrorism as an instrument of state policy would always suffer due to their duplicity, the statement pointed out.
Terming Osama as the "global face of terrorism," the party described his elimination as a high point in the global war against terror.
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