Malik’s visit backfires, India rules out joint statemen

Malik’s visit backfires, India rules out joint statement

Peace Process Hit By Verbal Onslaught

Bharti Jain TNN

New Delhi: India refused to issue a joint statement with Pakistan at the end of interior minister Rehman Malik’s three-day visit, in apublic protest against the provocations of the Pakistani minister which set the peace process backwards, negating the very objective of the meeting.
    Though a joint press conference by home minister Sushilkumar Shinde and his Pakistani counterpart was ruled out at the very outset on account of Parliament being in session, the two sides had agreed to issue a joint statement.
    Officials in the home ministry were, in fact, working on a draft until the ceaseless needling led India to decide enough was enough. The last-minute decision was a reflection of India’s annoyance over Malik’s conduct which widened the trust deficit and reinforced India’s suspicions that Pakistan was not sincere when it promised to punish the perpetrators of 26/11.
    However,the bitter taste left by Malik’s controversial remarks — wherein he mentioned 26/11 and Babri demolition in the same breath and also indicated that Kargil martyr Saurabh Kalia may have succumbed to inclement weather — led India to do away with a joint statement. The fact that this was a last-minute decision, taken after much prodding of Malik’s delegation to act on India’s demands in the 26/11 case, was clear when home ministry officials were asked to work on Sunday in anticipation of a positive response from Pakistan.
‘India’s intel failure caused 26/11’
    Pakistan interior minister Rehman Malik on Sunday brushed aside the role of the Lashkar-e-Taiba in 26/11 and said it was a failure of Indian intelligence agencies. “...There are three guys, one coming from the US (Headley) , and he has money...he has moved all over... All these should have come to the attention of some agencies,” he said. Hafiz Saeed, he said, “was supposed to belong to the LeT”, which Pakistan had banned. P9 ROUGH RIDE FOR TIES
No joint statement issued at the end of Malik’s threeday visit
    Shinde was assured a copy of 26/11 chargesheet filed by Pakistan, only to be told later by the Pakistani team that it had brought no such document
    During talks, Malik did not raise suspicion of Abu Jundal being an Indian agent, but brought it up with media later
Shinde told Malik after his controversial remarks on 26/11 and the Babri demolition that he should have restricted himself to the visa agreement
Pak judicial commission to visit but India sets riders: Home ministry team will travel to Pakistan first to finalize modalities and secure assurance on admissibility of the evidence to be collected and the commission’s visit being final Pakistan delegation failed to match promises with action
New Delhi: In fact, even before they decided against the joint statement, India made its disgust plain. Shinde, whom Malik had stunned into silence by raking up Babri, reportedly told the Pakistani visitor during one-on-one talks that he had spoken out of turn and that he should have restricted his statement to only the visa agreement.
    The only concrete outcome was the understanding on the visit of a second Pakistani judicial commission to India to cross-examine the key 26/11 witnesses here. But in what vividly illustrates how the alleged peace mission was marred by a deepening suspicion of Pakistan’s intent to take the 26/11 probe and trial to a logical conclusion, India insisted on two riders.
    It insisted that a home ministry team should be allowed to visit Pakistan to work out the modalities and sort out the legal issues in the panel’s visit. Secondly, the home ministry sought a firm legal opinion from Pakistani law officers on the admissibility of the information that the panel seeks to collect from cross-examining witnesses here and also an express assurance that this would be the final visit of the judicial commission.
    The Indian side justified the riders by saying how Pakistan had done little to speed up the 26/11 trial and bring the perpetrators to justice. Much as Malik, in his one-onone interaction with Shinde, offered to part with all the information sought by India on the 26/11 probe and trial in Pakistan, the delegation accompanying him showed few signs of matching up to the promise when it came to the brass tacks. Incidentally, Abu Jundal being an “Indian intelligence agent” was never raised by Malik during the talks, even after the Indian side repeatedly cited Jundal’s statement to underline that even he had confirmed Hafiz Saeed’s role as the prime mover of the 26/11 attack.
    Among the demands put forward by Shinde at his interaction with Malik were handing over a copy of the 26/11 chargesheet filed in the Rawalpindi court, details of calls exchanged by 26/11 perpetrators, IP addresses used for communication during the Mumbai attacks and details of bank accounts supposedly used by 26/11 accused Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi. Shinde also sought dates for an NIA team’s visit to review progress of the 26/11 probe in Pakistan.