NEW DELHI, June 26: Indian Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani on Wednesday accused Pakistan’s High Commission of channelling funds that “go into fomenting terrorism in Kashmir”.

Pakistan acting High Commissioner in New Delhi, Jalil Abbas Jilani, described the charge as part of an avoidable blame game by India.

“Pakistan was spending several crores of rupees annually to fund terrorist and secessionist activities in India,” Press Trust of India quoted Mr Advani as telling a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee.

He said the channel of funding “is through trans-border smugglers, infiltrating mercenaries, through the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi, through hawala operators and also charitable organizations”.

Mr Jilani said: “The blame should now end. Obviously these are unsubstantiated charges. India should now respond to the call by the international community for the reduction of tensions and resumption of talks.”

Mr Advani said these funding channels needed to be blocked.

“Pakistan is funding these terrorist organizations by remunerating the cadres, maintaining infrastructure, supplying weaponry and logistics, and providing maintenance to families of killed terrorists,” he charged.

Islamabad, Mr Advani alleged, also provided finance to overground workers and sympathizers to create safe havens for terrorists, and funded expatriate Kashmiri organizations to articulate its viewpoint in international fora.

Mr Advani told the committee that multi-agency approach and implementation of the Prevention of Terrorism Act had led to significant achievements in detection of funding channels to “terrorists operating in Jammu and Kashmir”. He claimed that over 3,000 Al Qaeda men had crossed over to Pakistan from their bases in Afghanistan.

“Government has information that over 3,000 Al Qaeda men have crossed over to Pakistan from their earlier bases,” he told the meeting.—J.N