New Delhi, July 23: Governments cannot escape responsibility by pointing to “non-state actors” in the case of terrorist attacks, P. Chidambaram said today, dealing a jab at Pakistan days before the foreign ministers of both countries are scheduled to meet here.
“If I may speak frankly, let me say that no state and no government can escape responsibility by pointing to non-state actors,” Chidambaram told a Saarc home ministers’ meeting in Thimphu.
Islamabad has repeatedly said the planners of the 26/11 strikes in Mumbai are “non-state actors”.
The Indian home minister said that if the territory of a country was being used by non-state actors to prepare for terrorist attacks, that country owed a legal and moral responsibility to its neighbours and to the world to suppress those non-state actors and bring them to justice.
He said terrorist groups in the region have flourished because of the support they have found from state and non-state actors. “Sometimes, I think that the distinction between state actors and non-state actors is misplaced and intended to misdirect our efforts to deal with terrorist groups at the very source — the recruitment centres, the training camps and their safe havens and sanctuaries.”
Pakistan interior minister Rehman Malik was present at the meeting. Hours before, Chidambaram had even welcomed Malik at the New Delhi international airport on his way to Thimphu.
Pakistan foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar will meet her Indian counterpart S.M. Krishna on July 26-27.
Chidambaram also sought co-operation from Saarc countries in checking counterfeiting of Indian currency “in an organised way” — a reference to intelligence reports that Pakistan has presses to print fake Indian currency. He pointed out that South Asia was the most vulnerable region in the world with the majority of terrorist incidents this year and last year having occurred here.
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