Islamabad: Pakistan’s interior minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed has said that the families of the Afghan Taliban reside in his country, including in the capital city of Islamabad.
“Taliban families live here–in Pakistan, in Rawat, Loi Ber, Bara Kahuh and Tarnol,” Rashid told the Urdu-language network Geo News in an interview citing the names of Islamabad suburbs.
He added that the injured Taliban also receive medical treatment in Pakistani hospitals.
“Sometimes their dead bodies arrive and sometimes they come here in hospitals to get medical treatment,” he said.
Earlier this month Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi in an interview with TOLOnews had denied the presence of Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan.
Qureshi had maintained that most of the Islamist groups’ leaders “are in Afghanistan” and when asked about the Quetta and Peshawar Shuras, or councils, he denied the existence of such institutions in Pakistan and said he “has been hearing of these terms for now decades.”