Blaming involvement of a ‘‘foreign hand’’ in the recent suicide attack on a Shiite mosque in Quetta in which over 50 people were killed, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat today said Islamabad has expressed its concern to Afghanistan and Iran over Indian consulates in the neighbourhood.Much on the lines of recent comments made by the Pakistan PM that the attack could be the ‘‘fallout’’ of Indian consulates in Kandahar and Herat in Afghanistan and Zahidan in Iran, Hayat told the media here that ‘‘leads point to the involvement of foreign hand in last Friday’s terrorist attack on a Quetta mosque’’.Declining to come out with any specific evidence to accuse a foreign country’s involvement, Hayat said the investigation into the attack was in an advanced stage and some implications still remain. ‘‘The Indian missions seem to have nothing to do with economic considerations in the face of unfavourable conditions — this is a matter of grave concern,’’ Hayat said. Meanwhile, Pakistan declined to accept the UN offer to mediate between Islamabad and Kabul after its embassy was ransacked. Reacting to the offer by UN special envoy to Afghanistan Lakthar Brahimi, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan said the situation has not come to such a pass for mediation.(PTI)
