Pak accepts Kabul’s demand to hand over Baradar

KABUL - The Pakistan government has agreed to handover the top Afghan Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was nabbed in a joint operation by the Pakistani and US officials in Karachi earlier this month, to Afghanistan.

A statement issued from the office of President Hamid Karzai stated that Islamabad has accepted Kabul’s request to hand over Baradar and other extremist leaders to it for further investigations.

“The government of Pakistan has accepted Afghanistan’s proposal for extraditing Mullah Baradar and other Taliban who are in its custody and showed readiness to hand over those prisoners … on the basis of an agreement between the two countries,” The Dawn quoted the statement, as saying.

Baradar is one of the 42 people, including other top Taliban commanders, Afghanistan wants Pakistan to extradite.

It is worth mentioning here that the US is also demanding Pakistan to hand over Baradar, the Taliban’s second-in command to it but Islamabad has turned down the request.

The arrest of Mullah Baradar was kept secret for about a week before Islamabad and Washington confirmed the prize catch last week terming it as a ‘big success’ in the fight against terrorism.

Mullah Baradar is regarded as second only to Mullah Mohammad Omar, Taliban’s supreme commander.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik had also rejected the White House’ request to hand over Baradar, saying Pakistani agencies would first investigate his links with the banned terrorist network, and could hand him over to Afghanistan if the need arises but not to the US.

“First we will see whether they have violated any law.If they have done it, then the law will take its own course against them, but at the most if they have not done anything, then they will go back to the country of origin, not to the US,” Malik had said earlier. (ANI)