ISLAMABAD: Following a backlash over Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s recent call for a military offensive, the home minister of the restive Balochistan province accused India on Wednesday of being the “single investor” of banned outfits Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), responsible for carrying out terror attacks and abductions in the country.
Minister Ziaullah Langau’s allegations came during a press conference in Quetta, Balochistan’s capital. He said security forces had arrested two key militant commanders— TTP’s Nasrullah, alias Maulvi Mansoor, and Idrees, aka Irshad— and then showed a recorded statement of the former.
In the video statement Nasrullah claimshe belongs to South Waziristan’s Sararogha tehsil and that he had worked from slain Baitullah Mehsud’s platform before joining TTP in 2007.He recalled that he had settled in Afghanistan’s Paktika province during the2014 military offensive in North Waziristan and had been working as an “emir” in TTP’s defence commission since 2023.
He thenexplainedaplanhe had been briefed about in Jan 2024 according to which a BLA guide would take him to southern Balochistan by helping him cross the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan through Spin Boldak town. According to the militant, Bashir Zeb, commander of BLA Majeed Brigade, was complicit in the plan’s creation.
Nasrullah alleged India’s intelligence agency R&AW was behind all this, that it wanted a BLA-TTP nexus, and that TTP bases be established in Khuzdar, Balochistan.
“TTP chief Mufti Noor Wali Mehsudand the outfit’s defence minister, Mufti Muzahim, said we(TTP)and our friends(R&AW)have three objectives in establishing a foothold in Balochistan,” he claimed, adding: “Sabotaging CPEC projects, including targeting Chinese citizens; carrying out kidnappings for ransom to play up the matter of enforced disappearances so that intelligence agencies can be defamed; and spreading anarchy and frustration among the people by fomenting terrorist activities in Balochistan.”
He claimed that Mehsud held meetings with R&AW agents at the Indian embassy in Kabul and that this was fully supported by the Afghan government.
After showing Nasrullah’s video statement, Langau said, “The global community should have no doubt left that there is India behind all this.”
He said that while TTP vowed to “introduce an Islamic system”, the BLA on the other hand was their “ideological opposite”. “Their nexus only means that their investor is the same who is using them from two angles,” he alleged. “If you look at the financial support or the intelligence of BLA and TTP, or their members sitting abroad, there is no doubt that RAW is funding them,” Langau alleged.
Minister Ziaullah Langau’s allegations came during a press conference in Quetta, Balochistan’s capital. He said security forces had arrested two key militant commanders— TTP’s Nasrullah, alias Maulvi Mansoor, and Idrees, aka Irshad— and then showed a recorded statement of the former.
In the video statement Nasrullah claimshe belongs to South Waziristan’s Sararogha tehsil and that he had worked from slain Baitullah Mehsud’s platform before joining TTP in 2007.He recalled that he had settled in Afghanistan’s Paktika province during the2014 military offensive in North Waziristan and had been working as an “emir” in TTP’s defence commission since 2023.
He thenexplainedaplanhe had been briefed about in Jan 2024 according to which a BLA guide would take him to southern Balochistan by helping him cross the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan through Spin Boldak town. According to the militant, Bashir Zeb, commander of BLA Majeed Brigade, was complicit in the plan’s creation.
Nasrullah alleged India’s intelligence agency R&AW was behind all this, that it wanted a BLA-TTP nexus, and that TTP bases be established in Khuzdar, Balochistan.
“TTP chief Mufti Noor Wali Mehsudand the outfit’s defence minister, Mufti Muzahim, said we(TTP)and our friends(R&AW)have three objectives in establishing a foothold in Balochistan,” he claimed, adding: “Sabotaging CPEC projects, including targeting Chinese citizens; carrying out kidnappings for ransom to play up the matter of enforced disappearances so that intelligence agencies can be defamed; and spreading anarchy and frustration among the people by fomenting terrorist activities in Balochistan.”
He claimed that Mehsud held meetings with R&AW agents at the Indian embassy in Kabul and that this was fully supported by the Afghan government.
After showing Nasrullah’s video statement, Langau said, “The global community should have no doubt left that there is India behind all this.”
He said that while TTP vowed to “introduce an Islamic system”, the BLA on the other hand was their “ideological opposite”. “Their nexus only means that their investor is the same who is using them from two angles,” he alleged. “If you look at the financial support or the intelligence of BLA and TTP, or their members sitting abroad, there is no doubt that RAW is funding them,” Langau alleged.
