Pakistan to approach UN after blaming India for bombing

Hafiz Muhammad Saeed (R), chief of the Islamic charity organisation Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), leaves after he appeared before a court to challenge his house arrest in Lahore, Pakistan, May 13, 2017. REUTERS/Mohsin Raza

Pakistan will take a dossier to the United Nations alleging its neighbour India has backed incidents of terrorism, the foreign ministry said on Wednesday, a day after Islamabad said India was behind a high-profile bombing.

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar said the dossier will include detailed evidence and information of India's involvement in a 2021 bombing outside the house of an Islamist leader, among other incidents of sabotage and what she called terrorism.

FILE PHOTO: Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of Pakistan Hina Rabbani arrives for the Leaders' Retreat, on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting at the Intare Conference centre in Kigali, Rwanda June 25, 2022. Dan Kitwood/Pool via REUTERS

"We will call it information based evidence," Rabbani Khar said about the dossier. "It is sharing information and sharing evidence on what India has been up to."

"Let's put the record straight, that's what it is, and ... to let the world know that what is happening in the region."

India's foreign office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment about the dossier. Rabbani Khar did not say when the dossier was to be presented to the U.N., or to which U.N. body

Pakistan on Tuesday accused India of backing and funding the 2021 bombing outside the house of Hafiz Saeed, the founder of the Islamist militant Lashkar-e-Taiba group blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which killed 166 people, including foreigners.

New Delhi has not responded to Tuesday's allegations.

India says Saeed was the mastermind of the Mumbai carnage, a charge he has denied.

Khar said the facilitators and mastermind of the bombing that killed four people in eastern city of Lahore were based in India.

"We would want India to hand them over, and as responsible nations do... and if India is a responsible nation, they will cooperate," she said.

Arch-rivals Pakistan and India have fought three wars since 1947, when British colonial ended and the two independent nations were created in a blood-drenched process known as partition.

They blame each other for sponsoring and backing attacks inside their countries, a charge both the nations deny.

(Reporting by Asif Shahzad in Islamabad; Additional Reporting by Shilpa Jamkhandikar in Mumbai; Edting by Frank Jack Daniel)