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Monday, January 12, 2009

India, Pakistan urged to resume composite dialogue process

* HRCP, SAFMA welcome Pakistan’s admission of its national’s involvement in Mumbai attacks
* Proposes New Delhi, Islamabad strengthen joint anti-terrorism mechanism

AMRITSAR: India and Pakistan must not allow terrorists to hijack the peace agenda and should go back to the composite dialogue process, a joint statement issued by Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA) said on Sunday. HRCP Chairwoman Asma Jehangir and SAFMA Secretary General Imtiaz Alam visited Amritsar on a peace mission and addressed a peace conference. Emphasising the resumption of the composite dialogue process, they showed abhorrence for war mongering and rejected war as a means to solve inter-state disputes. They were of the view that through understanding, cooperation and friendship, India and Pakistan must fight their common enemy, terrorism. At the conference, they condemned the terrorist attacks in Mumbai in November last year and sympathised with the families of the victims and the people of India. Admission: The peace activists welcomed Pakistan’s admission of involvement of Pakistanis in the heinous act, which, they said, should, however, have been done much earlier. The HRCP and SAFMA leaders stressed the need for a joint India-Pakistan investigation and a judicious prosecution of the culprits. They called upon the government of Pakistan to do the needful since terrorism was the common enemy of both the countries and urged India and the media in both countries to show restraint. The joint statement said India’s rage after the Mumbai attacks was justified and the world showed sympathy for it. When counter-rage was shown in Pakistan, it did not wash with the world and ended up bringing Pakistan’s democracy under tremendous pressure. But then the Indian TV channels got into the act for ‘the race for ratings’. Mechanism: Imtiaz Alam and Asma Jehangir proposed that at the bilateral level India and Pakistan strengthen joint anti-terrorism mechanism and initiate a joint investigation and bring the culprits to justice and at the regional level evolve an institutionalised mechanism to check, investigate and control cross-border crimes and terrorism and set up a judicial forum to prosecute culprits wanted on one side or the other. pr
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk

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