After inciting Sikh radicals in Canada, top Pakistani envoy now backs PFI to push anti-India agenda

Pakistan’s brazen support to anti-India extremists has been exposed again with the country’s top diplomat openly coming out in support of the leaders of the banned Popular Front of India. These have been arrested for their links to terrorism.

The move comes within a week of Janbaz Khan, currently Pakistan’s Consul General in Vancouver, visiting two Gurdwaras in Surrey, BC, Canada to back pro-Khalistani extremists. His brazen ability to use religion and minority status as a connecting force with the Muslim-oriented PFI has now come into play after his secret parleys with radical Canada-based Sikhs.

Janbaz Khan has served two tenures in New Delhi with the Pakistan High Commission and seems to have been carefully chosen by Islamabad as he has developed links with anti-India extremist outfits. He is also familiar with India’s socio-economic milieu which enables him to comfortably interact with these groups and promote Pakistan’s devious anti-India agenda. Khan on Wednesday attempted to amplify a PFI tweet to oppose the ban on the terror-linked organisation.

The official Twitter handle of the PFI had said after the ban on Wednesday (Sept 28th), “massive arrests are going on in the BJP-ruled states in the name of preventive custody. This is nothing but prevention of the right to democratic protests against the Central government’s witch-hunt targeting PFI is quite natural and expected under this autocratic system.”

Janbaz Khan, while extending support to the PFI’s propaganda on social media, tagged various offices of the United Nations and its affiliated organizations, with his reply. The tweet was, however, deleted after some time but a screenshot of the same went viral on the net.

The timing of his visit to Gurdwaras in Surrey coincided with the so-called “Sikh Referendum” held on September 18 by extremist elements in Brampton, Ontario. The diplomat was accompanied by two of his colleagues and held secret meetings with pro-Khalistan radicals to express support for their cause. But the ostensible reason used to pass off the visit was that he wanted to thank the Sikhs for the relief material they sent for the flood-affected people of Pakistan.

Khan has now tried to amplify the PFI tweet even as India’s anti-terror organisation NIA in the last few days unearthed several documents in which prove the organisation taught its cadre how to make IEDs (explosive devices) .

A few months ago, police in Bihar said the group had circulated a document that spoke of making India an Islamic nation. The organisation also prepared an anti-India document ‘Mission 2047’ containing videos of the Islamic State.

According to a dossier compiled by the investigative agencies, the PFI aimed to have “uniformed cadre training in martial arts and defensive/offensive tactics and form ‘Action Squads’ to take ‘revenge’ from the ‘enemy’.

The notification issued by the Union Home Ministry mentions the outfit’s links with banned terrorist groups such as Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), Jamat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and said that PFI is involved in several criminal and terror cases.

The Ministry of Home Affairs has registered a host of charges against the PFI and its members, including “sedition, creating enmity between different sections of society and taking steps to destabilise India”.

Investigations have also revealed that PFI has formed committees in UAE, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and other places to raise funds. Targets are given to individuals to collect cash and transfer the same to India through Hawala or camouflaged as genuine business transactions.