This Article is From Oct 13, 2014

Hardly Any Indian Muslim Indulges in Terrorism: President Pranab Mukherjee

Hardly Any Indian Muslim Indulges in Terrorism: President Pranab Mukherjee

President Pranab Mukherjee, arrives at Gardermoen Airbase in Oslo, Norway. (Press Trust of India)

Oslo: Asserting that the problem of terrorism in India was imported, President Pranab Mukherjee has said indigenous terrorist activity was "extremely negligible" with hardly any involvement of the 150 million Muslims of the country.

"Of course there may be one or two out of 150 million but all of these are imported. These are coming from outside. Indigenous terrorist activity in India is extremely negligible and whenever such signs are visible, we take appropriate steps," he said in interviews to the Norwegian media ahead of his two-day state visit in Norway.

President Mukherjee said terrorism has no respect for religion or borders with no ideology or their only ideology is wanton destruction and total negation of human values.

"Nobody should say terrorism indulged by A is good and terrorism indulged by B is bad. Good terrorists, bad terrorists - these types of classification, to my mind, are meaningless," President Mukherjee said.

The President said India has been fortunate as hardly any among the 150 million Muslims - second largest population after Indonesia - indulges in terrorism.

He added that terrorism must be fought and should not be indulged in any form. "That is the only way you can handle the terrorism," he said.

On the question of recent violence on the India-Pakistan border and Line of Control, President Mukherjee said the foreign minister would be the right person to answer this and added that stated policy on the issue is we can select our friends but cannot select our neighbours.

"In my capacity as the foreign minister serving India twice, I used to articulate that I cannot live in perpetual tension with my neighbour. I would like to ease the tensions. But at the same time, it is to be recognised that there have been a series of developments since independence and partition of these countries," he said.

President Mukherjee said there are two institutional treaties - Shimla Agreement of 1972 and Lahore Declaration of 1999 - which can provide the mechanism through which outstanding
issues could be resolved.
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