A senior commander of the banned terrorist organisation Pakistan Taliban Movement has claimed the organisation is working with banned separatist groups in Balochistan to sabotage the $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project, the province’s Interior Minister Mir Zia Langrove said on Wednesday.
“Nasrullah alias Maulvi Mansoor, who heads the Defence Committee of the Movement for Taliban Pak (TTP), was recently arrested by security forces while planning terror attacks in Balochistan. Maulvi Mansoor has revealed very crucial information regarding terrorist activities in Balochistan,” Langrove told a press conference in Quetta.
According to a report by News International, the arrests came a day after the Federal Cabinet approved Operation Azm-e-Isteqam, a revitalized national counter-terrorism operation decided by the Supreme Central Committee for National Action Plan.
In the maulvi’s video confession shown at the press conference, he admitted that the TTP had orchestrated the abductions in collaboration with the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and sent the abducted people to Afghanistan, making them appear as missing persons.
“I escaped to Afghanistan during Operation Zarb-e-Azab and have been conducting terror attacks on Pakistani army posts on the border ever since,” Mansoor said.
“TTP and BLA cooperate in many areas. We kidnap people for ransom and take the victims to Afghanistan and present them as missing,” he said in a video confession.
He said top BLA commanders had also taken refuge in Afghanistan along with the TTP.
Langrove said two top TTP commanders were arrested after a tough operation against the terrorists, but did not disclose where the arrests were made.
Maulvi Mansoor also confessed in the video that the TTP and BLA were trying to sabotage the CPEC projects in Balochistan.
CPEC, which links the port of Gwadar in Pakistan’s Balochistan province with China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is the flagship project of China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative.
The BRI is seen as an attempt by China to expand its influence overseas through infrastructure projects funded by Chinese investment around the world.
China is also investing billions of dollars in various power projects and road networks in Pakistan under the $60 billion CPEC programme.
However, in recent months, the implementation of various projects has been delayed following terrorist attacks on Chinese staff working in the projects.
Langrove also alleged that India was funding the TTP and the BLA.
He said the TTP had vowed to “introduce an Islamic system” while the BLA was “ideologically the opposite.”
“Their connection just means their investors are using them from two angles,” he argued.
He appealed to the people of Balochistan that militants were not interested in resolving their problems and asked them to shun violence as Pakistan was their country.
News International also reported that Idris alias “Irshad” was also arrested along with Maulvi Mansoor.
The government’s measures come in response to a significant increase in terrorist attacks in recent months, as reflected in the Security Report for the first quarter of 2024 published by the Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), which revealed that as many as 245 terrorist attacks and counter-terrorism operations in the country have resulted in at least 432 violence-related deaths and 370 injuries among civilians, security personnel and outlaws.
“The statistics cover only the first four months of 2024 and include 281 civilian and security force casualties,” it said, adding that “Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have borne the brunt of these attacks, with 92 per cent of the total fatalities and 86 per cent of attacks, including those related to terrorism and security force operations, occurring in these two provinces.”
First uploaded: 27 Jun 2024 03:22 IST
