New Delhi, July 21 (IANS) The home ministry’s new spokesperson Dileep Raj S. Chaudhary will take over July 26, official sources said Wednesday amid indications that Home Secretary G.K. Pillai will curtail his interactions with the media.
Chaudhary, additional secretary (Naxal management) in the ministry, is currently abroad on work and will take on his new responsibility after he returns this weekend, home ministry sources told IANS.
Ministry officials said Chaudhary, the first spokesperson of the ministry in the Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance government, will interact with the media on a day-to-day basis.
Chaudhary was appointed spokesperson of the ministry of home affairs Tuesday, close on the heels of Pillai’s comments on the involvement of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.
Pillai’s remark to a newspaper that the ISI ‘was involved from beginning to end’ in the Mumbai terror attack was raised by Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi at his recent meeting with Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna in Islamabad.
At the joint press conference after the talks, Qureshi said it was felt that Pillai’s statement on the eve of the talks ‘did not serve any purpose’.
However, India later pointed out that Pillai had just quoted from the interrogation report of Mumbai terror attack accused Pakistani American David Coleman Headley.
National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon Tuesday backed Pillai’s observations and
said that the nexus between terror groups and the official establishment in Pakistan was ‘getting stronger’.
A 1977 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of Madhya Pradesh cadre, Chaudhary has been cleared for a secretary level posting.
