During a TV programme on HUM News aired on December 23 last year, former Pakistani diplomat Zafar Hilaly decided to concoct fictional stories about the presence of ‘terror camps’ in India and urged the Pakistani Army to conducted strikes at one such supposed camp, barely at a distance of 10 km from the Indian Parliament. The anchor, Amir Zia, said that the Indian narrative of attacking Pakistani militant camps during the Balakot airstrike of 2019 found acceptance worldwide and asked Pakistan could do to strengthen its narrative.
Zafar Hilaly responded, “We don’t need to say anything. We have given them (Indian government) a dossier which clearly states that MQM terrorists, TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan) and BLA (Balochistan Liberation Army) terrorists are trained in several parts of India, including Delhi. So, whenever India puts forward this narrative, we must seek permission from our friendly nations to conducted such strikes on these ‘terror camps’ in India. One such camp is located just 10km away from the Indian Parliament. That’s about it.”
By concocting imaginary stories of terror outfits operating from India, the former Pakistani diplomat perhaps tried to pre-emptively justify forthcoming plans of the Pakistani Army establishment to engage in cross-border terrorism or even target the Indian Parliament under the pretext of taking out so-called terror camps in India.
The Pakistani army and its stooges in the state-controlled media are not new to peddling lies and presenting them as facts. While doing so, they often run the risk of exposing their nefarious designs, of future terror attacks in India, to the world as has been the case with Zafar Hilaly.
Pakistani hand in 2001 Parliament attacks
On the 13th of December, 2001, one of the most deadly terrorist attacks on Indian soil and certainly the greatest assault on our democratic system was perpetrated. 20 years ago, our Parliament was attacked by Islamic terrorists linked to Pakistani terror outfits and six policemen and two Parliament Security Service personnel were martyred on that fateful day. Our democratic system has suffered and overcome many terrible affronts but the Parliament attack of 2001 remains one of the darkest spots in our country’s history.
The then Home Minister, LK Advani remarked, “It is now evident that the terrorist assault on the Parliament House was executed jointly by Pakistan-based and supported terrorist outfits, namely, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad. These two organisations are known to derive their support and patronage from Pak ISI. The investigation so far carried out by the police shows that all the five terrorists who formed the suicide squad were Pakistani nationals. All of them were killed on the spot and their Indian associates have since been nabbed and arrested.”
