Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari today sought to answer the concerns of an outraged India by agreeing to send ISI chief Lt Gen Shuja Pasha to New Delhi for information sharing on the Mumbai attack after a telephonic conversation with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. This was confirmed by Pakistan PM Yousaf Raza Gilani, who also spoke with Singh today, and subsequently issued a statement through his spokesperson in Islamabad. “The two sides will work out the modalities for the visit of the Inter Services Intelligence chief which is expected to take place soon,” said spokesperson Zahid Bashir in Islamabad.
New Delhi's move comes at a time when, sources said, relevant details emerging from the investigations and questioning of the alleged Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists captured alive have been shared with US agencies to cross-check identities in Pakistan given that plot was planned and executed from Pakistani soil.
While this had barely played out, visiting Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi invoked the Samjhauta Express blast case here to make the argument that India tends to arrive at conclusions sooner than it should even though this may have been the worst terror attack on India.
“When Samjhauta blasts happened, lots of people had made several kinds of allegations...today the investigation has turned around completely. Probably when this Mumbai case is investigated threadbare, there may be another direction to the case...after all local elements, Deccan Mujahidden and so on cannot be overruled,” he told reporters at the Indian Women's Press Corps today.
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