logo
Pakistan's record on terrorism is very clear: India

Pakistan's record on terrorism is very clear: India

New Delhi, June 12 (UNI) 'Pakistan's track record is very clear,' India said on Thursday as it sought to remind the US about Islamabad's history of supporting terrorism, including granting of shelter to Osama Bin Laden.
The assertion by External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal came a day after US Central Command Chief General Michael Kurilla praised Pakistan, saying it was a 'phenomenal counter-terrorism partner' in the fight against terrorism and also commended it for support in operations against ISIS.
'We all know Pahalgam attack is only the recent example of cross-border terrorism. I would remind you that only recently one of the conspirators of 26/11 Tahawwur Rana was extradited from the US to India,' Jaiswal said during the weekly briefing.
Rana, Pakistani origin Canadian citizen, is associated with Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terror outfit and was one of the key plotter of Mumbai terror attack of 2008.
'Obviously none of us have forgotten that Pakistan gave shelter to Osama bin Laden. It is significant that the person and you would be aware that Dr Shakeel Afridi, who helped locate Osama Bin Laden is still imprisoned by Pakistani military,' he added.
Laden, chief of Al-Qaida terror network, was found and killed by Special Forces of America in May 2011 in a surgical operation at a residential house in Abbottabad, near Pakistan's capital Islamabad and close to military cantonment. UNI AKK RBE SSP

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Bangladesh national polls possible in Feb, CA Yunus and BNP reach agreement
Bangladesh national polls possible in Feb, CA Yunus and BNP reach agreement

United News of India

timean hour ago

  • United News of India

Bangladesh national polls possible in Feb, CA Yunus and BNP reach agreement

Dhaka, June 13 (UNI) Bangladesh Chief Advisor Mohammad Yunus and BNP chairman Tarique Rahman have agreed that general elections could take place a week before Ramadan in the second week of February, provided all preparations were completed by then. The preparations include sufficient progress in electoral reforms and the July Uprising trials. The BNP chairman, who met the CA in the Dorchester Hotel in London, reportedly expressed satisfaction with the decision, putting both parties on the same page after the BNP came to loggerheads with the interim government over its decision to hold elections in April next year, which they called unfeasible. The interim government appointed National Security Advisor Khalilur Rahman. briefing media about the meeting between Rahman and Yunus, said it was held in a cordial environment. "Tarique Rahman proposed to the chief advisor that the national election be held before next year's Ramadan. The party's chairperson, Begum Khaleda Zia, also believes that holding the election during that time would be good," Khalilur said, reports Daily Star. "The chief advisor said that he has already announced that the election will be held in the first half of April next year. If all preparations are completed, the election could be organised in the week before Ramadan in 2026. However, sufficient progress in reforms and judicial matters will need to be achieved within that timeframe". UNI ANV SSP

Ram Madhav writes: What the current discourse on religious freedom gets wrong
Ram Madhav writes: What the current discourse on religious freedom gets wrong

Indian Express

timean hour ago

  • Indian Express

Ram Madhav writes: What the current discourse on religious freedom gets wrong

In an interesting report, 'Changing the conversation about religious freedom: An integral human development approach', published in June last year, the Atlantic Council, a US-based think tank, claimed that it was seeking 'a new approach to religious freedom that integrates it with integral human development (IHD)'. In a welcome departure from the earlier practice of demonising countries in the name of religious freedom, the report argued that religious freedom should not only be treated as a human right but also as 'a crucial component of overall human flourishing and sustainable development'. Religious freedom became a bogey to defame countries after the US Congress passed the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) in 1998 and created the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) to 'monitor, analyse and report on violations of religious freedom worldwide'. The commission's annual reports have acquired notoriety for misrepresenting facts, often with an alleged political bias, in branding several countries as 'Countries of Particular Concern' (CPCs). Several countries have questioned its locus standi in interfering in their sovereign affairs. India took an aggressive stand by refusing to recognise the commission and denying visas to its officials. Earlier this year, the Ministry of External Affairs not only rejected the commission's 2025 report, which included India as one of the CPCs, but went further to brand the commission an 'entity of concern'. The USCIRF's reports have no sanctity outside the four walls of the US Congress. Yet, they have helped create a 'religious freedom industry'. A breed of 'religious freedom ambassadors' has emerged in over 30 countries. Religious freedom, per se, is not contentious. Several democracies, including India, hold it as sacrosanct. Articles 25 to 30 of the Indian Constitution offer various freedoms to religions including the freedom of conscience, the right to freely profess, practice, and propagate, and the freedom to manage their affairs without state intervention. Minority religions enjoy positive discrimination by way of special rights to run educational and cultural institutions. The same rights are not available to the majority Hindu religion. India is the only country where people of all religions, including several Christian denominations and Muslim sects, coexist in harmony. It's not that there are no religious tensions, but they must be seen in the context of India's population of a billion-plus Hindus, almost 200 million Muslims and 40 million Christians. In its long history, Hindu society has endured enormous religious persecution by invading Mughal armies as well as violent religious inquisitions by Christian rulers like the Portuguese in Goa. The country was partitioned in 1947 on religious grounds after a brutal and violent campaign led by the Muslim League. That history has made the leaders of modern India recognise the need for strengthening the bond of national unity based not only on political and constitutional foundations but also on cultural and civilisational ethos. Religious bigotry and fundamentalism — majority or minority — were rejected and emphasis was laid on creating a national mainstream. For a vast and diverse country with a long history of religious strife, that's not an easy task. Yet, occasional outbursts notwithstanding, India has achieved commendable success in demonstrating unity and harmony. Still, India remained in the USCIRF's crosshairs. There are two important reasons for that bias. One is that the commission places its religious freedom discourse in a Eurocentric framework. It refuses to take into account country-specific sensitivities. Two, it relies on scholars who are reportedly biased. I was at a conference in Rome recently where the Atlantic Council's initiative to view religious freedom from the prism of integral human development was the central theme. Propounded first by Jacques Maritain, a French Catholic philosopher, in 1936, and followed three decades later by Deendayal Upadhyaya, the ideological father figure of the BJP, Integral humanism emphasises the need to rise above religions to secure not only the material but ethical, moral and spiritual well-being of individuals. It advocates a pluralistic approach for achieving such an integral development. It is imperative that the religious freedom discourse be situated in the national context to achieve a proper understanding of the role of religions in the integral growth of people. The Indian Constitution imposes reasonable restrictions on public order, morality and health on all fundamental rights, including the freedom of religion. That calls for religions that came from outside to internalise the cultural experience of India, in which pluralism and respect for all religions is an important basic principle. No religion can claim universality or superiority. Hence, in the Indian context, the religious narrative should shift from 'one god' to 'only god' — everything is divine — and 'one truth' to 'only truth'. Religious conversions are an important challenge in this context. In a landmark judgment in Rev. Stainislaus vs State of Madhya Pradesh (1977), the Supreme Court held that the right to 'propagate' does not include the right to proselytise and hence there is no fundamental right to convert another person. The Court clarified that it does not impinge on the freedom of conscience guaranteed by the Constitution, but rather, protects it. It may be worthwhile to recall that Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis had criticised proselytism, albeit in the limited context of Catholics being won over by other denominations. A proper understanding of the cultural and civilisational experiences of various nations helps in reframing the religious freedom discourse in the right perspective. Otherwise, the Atlantic Council's efforts will also be seen as 'a form of 'cultural imperialism' or a 'Western' endeavour with a hidden agenda', to borrow from its own report. The writer, president, India Foundation, is with the BJP. Views are personal

US Court Extends Detention Of Pro-Palestinian Protest Leader Mahmoud Khalil
US Court Extends Detention Of Pro-Palestinian Protest Leader Mahmoud Khalil

NDTV

timean hour ago

  • NDTV

US Court Extends Detention Of Pro-Palestinian Protest Leader Mahmoud Khalil

A U.S. judge on Friday denied Mahmoud Khalil's request to be released from detention, after federal prosecutors changed their rationale for holding the Columbia graduate student as part of its crackdown on pro-Palestinian activists. Newark, New Jersey-based U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz on Wednesday said the government could not use foreign policy interests to justify Khalil's detention. On Friday the government said it was also holding Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the United States, on a charge of immigration fraud. In response, Farbiarz said Khalil's lawyers had not successfully argued why it was unlawful for the government to hold him on the charge, which he has denied. The ruling marked the latest turn in Khalil's fight to be freed from a Louisiana detention center after his March arrest for involvement in the pro-Palestinian protest movement, which President Donald Trump has called antisemitic. His detention was condemned by civil rights groups as an attack on protected political speech. Marc Van Der Hout, a lawyer for Khalil, said the government practically never detained people for immigration fraud and the Syrian-born student was being punished for opposing Israel's U.S.-backed war in Gaza following Hamas' October 2023 attack. "Detaining someone on a charge like this is highly unusual and frankly outrageous," said Van Der Hout. "There continues to be no constitutional basis for his detention." Farbiarz had previously suggested legal residents like Khalil were rarely detained on the basis of immigration fraud. On Friday he said Khalil should seek bail from the immigration lawyer in his case. As lawyers for the Syrian-born activist sought his release, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, another immigrant targeted by the Trump administration, pleaded not guilty to migrant smuggling charges after his wrongful deportation. Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, was arrested by immigration agents in the lobby of his university residence in Manhattan on March 8. His U.S. citizen wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, gave birth to the couple's first child while Khalil was detained in April. Ahead of Father's Day in the U.S., a group of celebrities including actors Mahershala Ali, Mark Ruffalo and Mo Amer, called for Khalil to be freed. They also sent him a video showing the celebrities reading aloud a letter that the activist had sent to his infant son.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store