LAHORE: Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan claims that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is silent on the arrest of an Indian agency’s agent from Balochistan under a strategy.

He also declined to confirm arrest of two Indian engineers on sabotage charges from a factory owned by the Sharifs in a Punjab town.

“The government is working on a strategy to raise the issue of involvement of RAW in Pakistan,” Sana said when asked why the prime minister was not saying anything on the issue.

He was speaking to reporters outside the Punjab Assembly building here on Wednesday.

Asked about picking up of two Indian engineers by an agency from Ramzan Sugar Mills owned by the Sharifs for their alleged links with subversive activities here, he said absurd and wrong information was being disseminated as no agent or terrorist could have any link with a respectable and law-abiding citizen. When insisted to confirm or deny the report, he said no agency had so far given any report to the effect.

He explained that “sometimes a person is picked up but the report is not made public as other people (co-accused) are to be captured on the basis of the information divulged by him.”

He told a questioner that action against hate-mongers must not be confused with the one against “jet-black” terrorists.

Asked if Jaish-i-Muhammad and Jamaatud Dawa would be allowed to operate in the province under the notion of good and bad Taliban, the minister said the notion had died after the launch of Operation Zarb-e-Azb. “Now no one will be allowed to use our soil for any kind of terrorism.”

Answering a question about the arrest of the facilitator(s) of Gulshan-i-Iqbal Park tragedy, he said certain areas in the provincial capital were being cordoned off to check bio-data of residents. He appealed to the citizens to bear the inconvenience with patience.

Published in Dawn, March 31th, 2016