Bosnia in Central Europe emerging as route for Pak-origin terrorists in continent

SOURCE: ET

Bosnia & Herzegovina, a breakaway state from erstwhile Yugoslavia, has emerged as the main entry point of Pakistan-origin illegal migrants and terrorists to Europe raising fears of future terror strikes in that continent. Incidents of terrorists among Pakistani nationals came to light when the Bosnian government recently summoned Pakistani Ambassador to Sarajevo and reprimanded Islamabad for two Pakistan origin terrorists who entered as illegals, ET has reliably gathered.

Pakistan’s Ambassador has refused to cooperate with Bosnia and have their authorities check the fingerprints of illegal migrants in the country, even though Bosnia already uncovered two terrorists of Pakistani origin among the migrants based on their fingerprints, according to Bosnian Security Minister Fahrudin Radoncic.

“Recent reports like the US State Dept country report indicting Pakistan on Terrorism, the report from Germany about Pakistan being one of the countries trying to illegally source nuclear material and from Bosnia about Pakistan not cooperating in identifying terrorists show a clear pattern. The pattern is that Pakistan continues to be a rogue state that refuses to live by international norms whether on terrorism or nuclear regimes. The international community must take notice of its transgressions. The icing on the cake of course has been Imran Khan’s assertion about Osama bin Laden being a martyr,” Tilak Devasher, NSAB member and author of several books on Pakistan told ET.

Last month a leading British media reported that thousands of Pakistanis are allegedly using Bosnia and Herzegovina in Central Europe to reach the EU zone as illegals.

“The Bosnian border force claims that 3,000 Pakistani citizens have been fraudulently granted visas through the country’s embassy in Islamabad, enabling them to cut out a big part of the 4,000-mile people-smuggling route from Pakistan into Europe,” according to a report in The Times, UK published last month

“To reach Bosnia, Pakistani migrants would normally have to travel overland through Iran, Turkey, Greece, Albania and Macedonia in the hands of traffickers, spending weeks and thousands of pounds in the process and risking arrest, attacks by criminals and even death. With a visa, however, they can fly from Pakistan to Sarajevo, cross the border into Croatia, an EU member, and continue their journey north on the smuggling routes,” the report alleged.

UN refugee agency claimed that only 100 Pakistani migrants arrived in Bosnia in January 2019, but that the numbers started rising.

“There was then a sharp increase in arrivals of Pakistanis in July last year, with more than 2,000 arriving that month compared with fewer than 1,000 in June. After that the numbers dropped off slightly and then fell sharply again after October. The Bosnian state prosecutor has opened an investigation into the country’s embassy in Islamabad, while FahrudinRadoncic, the security minister, has seized on the allegations as evidence of a “security threat”,” according to The Times report.

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