NSC meeting today

RECORDER REPORT

ISLAMABAD: A meeting of the National Security Committee (NSC) has been suggested to Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to discuss misleading media statement on the Mumbai incident, Director-General of the Inter-Services Public Relations said on Sunday.

“NSC meeting suggested to Prime Minister to discuss recent misleading media statement regarding Bombay incident. Being held tomorrow (Monday) morning,” the director-general ISPR Major General Asif Ghafoor tweeted.

The development comes in the wake of a recent interview of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to a newspaper, wherein he said, “militant organisations are active. Call them non-state actors, should we allow them to cross the border and kill 150 people in Mumbai? Explain it to me. Why can’t we complete the trial?”

His remarks were played up by the Indian media as an admission of Pakistan’s involvement in the terrorist attacks. A group of militants attacked some important installations in Mumbai in November 2008 and India later accused Pakistan of sending militants linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba for the attack.

Pakistan has always denied the charge but the recent interview of Nawaz Sharif has generated a fresh controversy about involvement of LeT militants in the attacks.

Reacting to Nawaz Sharif’s statement, former interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, said that India has been using the Mumbai incident to malign statement.

“Pakistan was criticised over the Mumbai attacks,” he said, adding that India has used the Mumbai attacks for its own malicious plans.

Being a former interior minister, he said that he was aware of all the developments about the trial of the Mumbai attack suspects as Federal Investigation Agency was conducting investigations into the incident under the Ministry of Interior.

“The lack of cooperation by India was the biggest hurdle in the investigation. India wasn’t interested in a transparent investigation,” he said, adding that India also refused to share relevant evidence with Pakistan.

“We kept on requesting India to cooperate in the case. We have always cooperated with India over information sharing pertaining to all incidents of terrorism,” he said.

Nisar further said that India wasn’t even willing to cooperate with the investigation committee formed by the Pakistani courts. “The committee wasn’t even allowed to travel to India at first,” he said.

The former interior minister said that India also didn’t allow Pakistani investigation team to question Ajmal Kasab, sole eyewitness of the attack.

India announced his death sentence and removed him, he said, alleging that the death sentence process was hurried so that the facts are never brought before the world.

All of Pakistan’s requests, letters, and announcements regarding the Mumbai attacks have been recorded, which are safe with the FIA, he added.

The opposition parties have also criticized Nawaz Sharif for his statement regarding the Mumbai attacks and demanded him to retract it.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf secretary information Fawad Chaudhry said that Nawaz Sharif’s statement is irresponsible and an attempt to appease the international establishment.

He said that Nawaz Sharif has been trying to get a way out of the corruption cases against him and his family through such statements, but would not succeed.

Chaudhry said that Sharif’s statement is like firing a bullet at Pakistan and the state institutions.

Pakistan Peoples Party leader Sherry Rehman also criticized Nawaz Sharif for his statement regarding Mumbai attacks, saying that Sharif’s statement compromised Pakistan’s narrative in the war against terrorism and demanded that he retract his remarks.

She said that questions were being raised all around the world following Nawaz’s remarks. “Why didn’t Nawaz also say that Pakistan tried hard to cooperate with India in the Mumbai trials?” she added.