ISLAMABAD: Former interior minister Rehman Malik claimed on Wednesday that he had documentary evidence about the presence of the Daish militant group in Pakistan.

Talking to Dawn, he said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif should sensitise the international community about the rapid penetration of Daish into several countries and use the forum of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation for setting up of an international desk for sharing information about the activities of the group.

Mr Sharif is currently in Kathmandu, Nepal, to attend the Saarc summit.

“I have solid proofs that Daish has established its contacts with the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and it is quite possible that one of Taliban leaders will soon be named as its chief in Pakistan,” he said. When asked about documents he possessed, the PPP leader said: “I will brief the nation about documentary proofs and will make them public in a couple of days,” he said.

He expressed disappointment over the PML-N government’s response to the threat and said it was paying no heed to track down the Daish terrorists in the country.

“Instead of remaining in a state of denial, the government should take serious action before Daish spreads like Talibanisation did and pushes the country into another phase of terrorism,” he said.

Mr Malik said the country had already suffered a lot as thousands of children, men, women and troops had lost their lives in terrorist attacks.

He called upon the government to take the nation into confidence on actions it had taken after reports about presence of Daish’s flags and banners emerged in different parts of the country.

The former interior minister urged Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to set up a task force to prevent Daish from taking root in the country.

Mr Malik recalled that when he talked about the presence of Punjabi Taliban people ridiculed him, but later it was proved that the outfit was a reality and it had links with the TTP.

Published in Dawn, November 27th , 2014