Pak Interior Ministry denies Blackwater’s presence in country

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan’s Interior Ministry has denied the presence of Blackwater, a US private security contractor, in the country.

Additional Secretary in the Interior Ministry- Asif Nawaz Warriach- disclosed this while giving a briefing to the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Interior, The Nation reported.

However, the parliamentarians present in the meeting were not ready to digest the answer of the Ministry, and MNA Bushra Gohar inquired the Additional Secretary whether he was sure.

“This is what I was given”, Asif replied.

State Minister of Interior- Tasneem Ahmed Qureshi- also endorsed the viewpoint of his Ministry, saying that they had no information about Blackwater, as security and intelligence agencies had given them no clue about it.

He also criticised the media, saying that it was trying to the convert the non-existence of a security company into its existence.

But MNA Bashir Virk was of the view that Blackwater might be working under the proxy name Xe Worldwide or any other, but its activities in Pakistan could not be denied.

“Does Blackwater work without any legal cover if Ministry denies its presence?,” he questioned.

Another parliamentarian Bilal Yasin wondered that if Blackwater was not there in Pakistan then who those persons were, who travelled in tainted glassed vehicles that were not being checked at police posts.

He also noted that there had been a steep increase in the number of foreigners’ residences during the recent years, and the matter should be probed.

Bushra Gohar termed Blackwater as ‘Unidentified Foreign Objects,’ and said that there should be some agreement of the government with them if foreigners did not believe in the nation’s security system.

It is noteworthy that Interior Minister Rehman Malik has verbally denied the presence of the foreign security company in Pakistan a lot of times. (ANI)