By IANS,
New Delhi : India Thursday reiterated that it was yet to receive Islamabad’s reply to its dossier pointing to the involvement of elements from Pakistan in the Mumbai terror attacks.
“We have not received any response to the dossier given to Pakistan,” Home Minister P. Chidambaram told reporters here.
Asked whether it was possible that the two National Security Advisers (NSAs) had exchanged information about Pakistan’s probe into the Mumbai carnage, he replied: “I have no idea. There has been no response as of now.”
Asked whether Pakistan had sought any clarifications on the Mumbai dossier, Chidambaram said: “We have not received anything so far.”
Questioned as to whether External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s statement earlier this week that India had no option but to wait for Pakistan constituted the official government stand, Chidambaram replied: “If Mr. Pranab Mukherjee has said so, it is government policy.”
“I don’t know what he has said but it obviously is government policy,” he added.
Asked to clarify his statement on snapping ties with Pakistan if it did not satisfactorily respond to the Mumbai dossier, Chidambaram replied: “What I had said was that there are many, many ties. If Pakistan doesn’t respond, these ties will get weaker and weaker and might snap. It’s a thought process.”
Mukherjee had Tuesday underlined that India was yet to receive any official response from Pakistan, sharply differing with NSA M.K. Narayanan’s reported comments on Islamabad’s attitude towards the Mumbai terror probe.
“That he (Narayanan) has stated in his own way. But the fact of the matter is that after they (Pakistan) received material from us, we have not received any official communication (about the probe) from them,” Mukherjee told reporters when asked about the NSA’s comments in a TV interview.
Narayanan, according to a transcript provided by CNN-IBN, said in an interview to the channel Sunday that Pakistan “appeared to be taking things seriously and at least they are proceeding in a manner that one would expect an investigating agency to proceed, asking queries and not taking everything that is given at the face value that has been given”.