By IANS,
Islamabad : Pakistan has completed its probe into the Mumbai attacks and would soon share this with India, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said, even as he pulled up the country’s envoy to Britain for speaking out of turn on the issue.
“I assure the world, the media and the government and the people of India that the (Indian) dossier (on Mumbai) has been investigated and has been forwarded to the Ministry of Justice and after their approval, I will take you into confidence,” Gilani told reporters here Sunday on his return from
the World Economic Forum meeting at Davos.
Gilani’s remarks came on the day Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee took umbrage at Pakistan communicating through the media, instead of diplomatic channels, its progress in the Mumbai probe.
Questioned about the statement by Pakistan’s High Commissioner to Britain Wajid Shamsul Hassan that the probe had revealed that the Nov 26-29, 2008 attacks were planned outside this country, Gilani said he had sought an explanation from the envoy.
“At times, people are not performing their duties but are doing duties of others,” the prime minister maintained.
A combative Mukherjee Sunday stressed that New Delhi has yet to receive any reply on the Mumbai dossier through diplomatic channels and offered to share more information with Islamabad if needed.
“Pakistan has not given India any information as a reply to the dossier through diplomatic channels. All we have heard so far on the dossier is from the media,” Mukherjee said.
“The least Pakistan could have done is to inform the Indian government about the probe through the Indian high commission in Islamabad,” the minister added. He was speaking at a function at Murshidabad in West Bengal.
According to Mukherjee, India was ready to share more information with Pakistan if this was required to further its investigation into the 26/11 attacks.
Mukherjee’s tough reminder to Pakistan appeared to contradict National Security Advisor (NSA) M.K. Narayanan’s remarks in a TV interview that Islamabad seemed serious about probing the Mumbai terror attacks in a manner an investigating agency “should proceed”.
Narayanan also said Pakistan had sent two sets of questions to India’s dossier handed over to it, one of which has already been replied to.
“We have provided them with the dossier. They have reverted with certain queries, we have replied to their queries, and I presume that they will have more questions and we will assist them,” Narayanan told interviewer Karan Thapar on the CNN-IBN show “Devil’s Advocate”.
“We have taken what I call a very conscious policy of saying if they wish us to assist in their investigations, we will do the utmost. What their response is going to be – from the kind of flip-flops that we have seen from time to time – I cannot say,” he added.