ISLAMABAD: There have been speculations about Indian intelligence agencies funding and training terrorists against Pakistan Army in different tribal areas. On Wednesday Pakistan’s Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar told visiting Dutch Defence Minister E Van Middelkoop that Pakistan had recovered Indian weapons and literature from South Waziristan.
Mukhtar said, “We demand the world community take strong notice of this interference. It is not only a violation of the United Nations’ Charter but certain agreed principles between Islamabad and New Delhi that the two countries will not allow terrorists to use their territories.” He said Pakistan and India had agreed to curb terrorism and make joint efforts, but “on the contrary it is India which is encouraging, training, funding and supplying arms and ammunition to terrorists.”
Meanwhile, militants Wednesday shot dead two women teachers in the tribal belt, where ground troops backed by jets stormed into a strategic Taleban bastion and fought bloody street battles.
The military said 30 “terrorists” were killed during fierce fighting, focused mostly in the crucial Taleban strongholds of Ladha and Sararogha in a third week of an offensive in South Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan.
In Bajaur district at the northern tip of the tribal belt, militants wielding automatic weapons opened fire on a vehicle carrying teachers from their school in the main town of Khar.
“Two women teachers were killed and two men were injured in the firing by militants,” administration official Adalat Khan said.
A senior military official said the army had “taken” the strategic town of Sararogha, where 16 insurgents were reported killed and eight soldiers wounded in the last 24 hours. “Today, security forces entered into the important stronghold of terrorists, the town of Ladha. Intense fighting is taking place in (the) streets,” the military said in its daily update.
At least eight militants were also killed and five others injured when jet fighters pounded their hideouts in Nawaz Kot village in North Waziristan.
— With input from agencies
