Islamabad/New Delhi, June 25 (IANS) The 26/11 Mumbai terror attack didn’t figure at the conference of the SAARC interior/home secretaries talks here Friday, Pakistan’s interior secretary said.
‘Matters related to anti-terrorism, drugs, controlling human smuggling, increasing contacts between the SAARC police forces and other important issues were deliberated upon and nothing with respect to the Mumbai attacks was discussed,’ Interior Secretary Chaudhry Qamar-uz-Zaman told reporters after the talks.
Noting that ‘there is a need for collective efforts against terrorism’, he added: ‘India has cooperated with us and we are optimistic that a positive outcome would be yielded from this conference.’
Indian Home Secretary G.K. Pillai also said that no talks with regard to the Mumbai attack were held. The issue would figure at the SAARC Interior/Home ministers talks here Saturday, Online news agency quoted Pillai as saying.
Home Minister P. Chidambaram will represent India at the ministerial meeting and will also hold talks with his Pakistani counterpart Rehman Malik, during which he is expected to press for concrete action against Hafiz Saeed, suspected by India to be the mastermind of the 26/11 Mumbai carnage.
Ahead of his visit to Islamabad, Chidambaram set a positive tone by clearing the release of four Pakistanis in Indian prisons.
Although terrorism figured prominently in the discussions between India’s Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir Thursday, Chidambaram is expected to take up the issue in greater detail with Malik.
Last week, India gave a dossier containing specific sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) under which Saeed is wanted in India. In the past, Pakistan had cited legal difficulties in prosecuting Saeed.
Chidambaram will also seek to know from his counterpart the status of the trial of seven Pakistanis involved in the Mumbai terror attack, official sources in New Delhi said.
