India withdraws MFN status to Pak, Wrong doers to pay ‘heavy price’ – says Jaitley

Union Ministers take lead in contributing for Clean Ganga Fund

The Cabinet Committee on Security presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday decided to withdraw Most Favoured Nation status given to Pakistan for trade ties.

This was announced by Union Minister Arun Jaitley. He said the Union Commerce Ministry will issue the necessary notification on this in due course.

Mr Jaitley said the meeting attended among others by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj besides him observed two minutes

silence as a mark of respect for the martyred CRPF personnel who made ‘supreme sacrifice’ after terror attack by JeM militants at Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday.

“The Ministry of External Affairs will initiate all possible diplomatic steps to ensure complete isolation of Pakistan from the international community,” said Mr Jaitley, who also held Defence portfolio for sometime.

“A detailed incident of the incident was also taken ….there are several details which are discussed in CCS which are normally not disclosed,” he said.

He said there are “evidence” of Pakistan’s involvement and ‘direct hand’ in the gruesome terrorist incident.

“MEA will also engage with the international community to make sure that the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism which has been pending for over three decades before the UN particularly because of the definition of the terrorism is now adopted at the earliest,” Mr Jaitley said.

He said – “as far as Indian security forces are concerned, they will be taking all possible steps firstly to ensure that full security is maintained and secondly to ensure that those who have committed this heinous act of terrorism and those who have supported it actively are made to pay a heavy cost for it,” he said.

On his return from Srinagar, Home Minister Rajnath Singh will possibly convene an all-party meeting on Saturday to brief them about the incident.