Pakistan’s former interior minister Rehman Malik on Friday said that the radical group Islamic State’s (IS) network is present in the country.
Malik claimed that security personnel had arrested several IS militants during raids conducted in different parts of the country, Dawn online reported.
He said that being a former interior minister, he had his own means of gathering information from sources which had provided him with information regarding the presence of IS militants in the country.
The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader also said that the IS militant group had emerged after infighting between different groups under the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) umbrella group.
The statement from the former interior minister comes despite a denial of IS presence by incumbent federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan.
Graffiti supporting the IS had appeared in various places across all four provinces of the country, causing a ripple of concern through the security administration.
A police probe into wall chalking was launched on the outskirts of Karachi and in Taxila where flags of the group were fixed to electricity poles near the Pakistan Ordinance Factories (POF).
Similarly, police in Lahore arrested two suspects for plastering IS stickers on walls in various localities.
Leaflets calling for support for IS were seen in several parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including Bannu, and South Waziristan tribal region’s Wana area.
Afghan refugee camps were particular targets of the IS propaganda.
