India-Pak NSA talks- Officials told: No room for error in most-wanted list

NSA Ajit K Doval is learnt to have told officials concerned that there can be “no room for any mistakes” in preparing the list.

Pakistani terrorist Naveed being taken away from Patiala House courts in New Delhi on Monday. Tashi Tobgyal

Four years after a gaffe over a list of India’s most-wanted fugitives in Pakistan left the UPA government red-faced, the BJP-led government wants to avoid a repeat when the National Security Advisors meet in New Delhi on August 23 and 24. South Block sources told The Indian Express that the PMO has asked the Home Ministry and Intelligence Bureau to “make sure” that the list is “error-free”.

NSA Ajit K Doval, who will represent the government at the talks, is learnt to have told officials concerned that there can be “no room for any mistakes” in preparing the list. The National Investigation Agency and Central Bureau of Investigation are also involved in the exercise.

In 2011, the Home Ministry had handed Islamabad a list of India’s 50 most-wanted in Pakistan during the official dialogue process. But to the embarrassment of the government, it turned out that two terrorists were in India — one in jail, the other out on bail.

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Later, Home Minister P Chidambaram had said that the mistake must be treated as a “genuine oversight or a human error”. The BJP, which was in the opposition then, had questioned the competence of the Congress-led government.

The Ministry of Home Affairs had blamed Mumbai Police and the Intelligence Bureau for the goof-up over the inclusion of Mumbai-based Wazhul Kamar Khan in the list of 50 most-wanted fugitives hiding in Pakistan.

A South Block official, privy to the preparations for the NSA-level talks this Sunday, said: “The goof-up had consequences on our credibility, when it came to handing over dossiers to Pakistan. It dented our efforts to corner Islamabad on terrorism, and hurt our credibility because Pakistan went to town with our mistake. So this time, all agencies and officials have been asked to verify every bit of information as the NSAs sit down for talks.”

New Delhi expects the list of 48 to increase since a great deal of information has been made available on the basis of counter-terrorism cooperation with the United States and other countries since 2011.

Shubhajit Roy

Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor at The Indian Express, has been a journalist for more than 25 years now. Roy joined The Indian Express in October 2003 and has been reporting on foreign affairs for more than 17 years now. Based in Delhi, he has also led the National government and political bureau at The Indian Express in Delhi — a team of reporters who cover the national government and politics for the newspaper. He has got the Ramnath Goenka Journalism award for Excellence in Journalism ‘2016. He got this award for his coverage of the Holey Bakery attack in Dhaka and its aftermath. He also got the IIMCAA Award for the Journalist of the Year, 2022, (Jury’s special mention) for his coverage of the fall of Kabul in August 2021 — he was one of the few Indian journalists in Kabul and the only mainstream newspaper to have covered the Taliban’s capture of power in mid-August, 2021. ... Read More

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