HoA demands strong action against Pak-based terror group

TIL Desk/National/Amritsar/Strong action against terror groups including Pakistan-based LeT and JeM involved in high level of violence in the region was demanded by the Heart of Asia (HoA) conference here today with India and Afghanistan launching a stinging attack on a virtually isolated Islamabad for sponsoring and supporting terrorism.

Combating terrorism was at the “core” of discussions at the annual HoA conference, which is meant to focus on efforts to reconstruct and stablise war-torn Afghanistan, but it could not firm up an Afghanistan-initiated proposal to set up a regional framework to counter the menace as many countries had not given their inputs.

Attended by some 40 countries, the two-day conference concluded with a strong declaration calling for concerted regional and international cooperation to ensure elimination of terrorism as well as dismantling of terrorist sanctuaries and safe havens in region as also disrupting all financial, tactical and logistical support for terror networks.

Modi also asked the international community to “demonstrate strong collective will to defeat terror networks that cause bloodshed and spread fear” as “silence and inaction” against terrorism in Afghanistan and in the region “will only embolden terrorists and their masters.”