New Delhi: India on Friday said that the reported remarks of a Pakistan state minister that legal action against militant organizations in his country was not possible because the state itself was linked to them only vindicated its stand on the subject.

Slamming Pakistan as the “epicentre of global terrorism", Indian foreign ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said, “If the honourable minister indeed said so, it sadly corroborates the view that we have always held about the support and freedom available to anti-India terrorist groups in Pakistan, including internationally sanctioned terrorist groups and individuals."

The comments were a reaction to a reported remark by Rana Sanaullah, law minister of Pakistan’s Punjab province, who said that prosecution of militant groups like Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) was impossible as the “state itself is involved".

In the interview to BBC’s Urdu service, Sanaullah, on being asked why action has never been taken against pro-establishment and anti-Indian militant groups in the province, responded: “By pro-establishment groups if you mean JuD and JeM, then let me tell you that they have been declared proscribed organisations and they can no longer carry out any activity in the province... How can you prosecute a group with whom the state itself has been involved?"

Swarup said on Friday that Sanaullah’s remarks also elucidated “the reason for lack of effective action even against those entities and individuals against whom Pakistan has international obligation to act".

“It is up to authorities in Pakistan to address this unfortunate reality in the interest of a normal relationship between our two countries and in the broader interest of Pakistan itself," he added.

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