ISLAMABAD: Former interior minister Rehman Malik has urged Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to apprise President Barack Obama about the “nexus” between Indian and Afghan intelligence agencies against Pakistan during his visit to the US.

In a letter to the prime minister on the eve of his departure for Washington, the PPP senator also advised Mr Sharif to ask the US “to do more for Pakistan” which had suffered a lot in the war on terror.

“This is no secret that India’s Intelligence Agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) is working in collaboration with the Afghanistan’s Intelligence Agency, National Directorate of Security (NDS), for creating instability and hostility in Balochistan and Fata,” Mr Malik says in the letter, a copy of which was released to the media on Sunday.

Also read: RAW may try to kill PM, warns Punjab govt

Despite numerous requests, he said, Afghanistan had not yet handed over (to Pakistan) Mullah Fazalullah who had publicly accepted the responsibility for the Army Public School carnage in Peshawar, in which 145 innocent children were butchered mercilessly.

According to PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar, the former interior minister has written the letter in his personal capacity. But, he added, there was nothing wrong in the letter as far as its contents were concerned.

In the letter, Mr Malik praised the prime minister for presenting a four-point peace initiative to India in his speech at the United Nations General Assembly last month.

He stressed that Mr Sharif was undertaking the US visit at “a very crucial time when Pakistan is facing multiple security and economic challenges” and the war on terror is “affecting us adversely”.

He described the scheduled Sharif-Obama meeting as of “great importance” in the context to Islamabad’s relationship with Washington and recently signed joint declaration between the United States and India, “which is detrimental to the interests of Pakistan that needs to be highlighted”.

“It is a matter of great concern that in the most recently signed US-India declaration both the countries (had) agreed to “Call for Pakistan to bring to justice the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attack while as a matter of fact the involvement of Indian agency (RAW) in the Mumbai attack has been proven beyond any doubt and it is actually non-cooperation of India which is delaying the trial in the Pakistani court.”

The PPP senator also wants the prime minister to take up with the US president the confessional statement of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Bangladesh for breaking Pakistan during the 1971 war.

He also asked Mr Sharif to seek deportation of Dr Afia Siddiqui on humanitarian grounds in view of the illness of her mother.

Mr Malik appealed to all political parties to extend cooperation to the prime minister during his US visit.

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2015

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